


Wayward Light

by OniGil



Series: Wayward Light [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: ...in SPACE!!, 69 (Sex Position), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Puns, Banter, Bloodplay/Siphoning, Escort Mission, Eye Trauma, Frottage, Intergalactic Road Trip, Linguistics, M/M, Mind Rape, Oral Sex, Rites of Passage, Shower Sex, Sticky Sex, Tactile, Torture, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-02-09 20:25:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 53,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1996674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OniGil/pseuds/OniGil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drift doesn't know who he is without Deadlock; Wing isn't half the knight he should be. Fortunately, there are plenty of planets to visit, battles to fight, and lives to save while they figure it out. Two bots setting off into the universe to find their path, together.</p><p>(ie, Wing Lives AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Hate Long Goodbyes

**Author's Note:**

> We're gonna have an ADVENTURE! I've been contemplating this one for a while. I don't know how long it will run or how long it will take to write, but this is one I want to see through.
> 
> Acknowledgements to ThePeacefulKnight for shameless encouragement and non-stop excitement. I only hope this lives up to your enthusiasm! Also, to the Drift/Wing hive-mind for their collective fanon.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes say goodbye.

_“Wing!” Drift’s knees crashed into the dust as he dropped beside Wing. The jet’s gold optics were dim, flickering, but online. Through the breach in his chest, his white Spark flickered fitfully, like a tiny flame in a strong wind. Drift cupped a protective hand over it, as though to keep it from blowing out. “Wing. I’m sorry… I should have been faster…”_

_“Drift.” His voice was faint, but still the most beautiful thing Drift had ever heard, because it meant that Wing—righteous, stubborn, infuriating, beautiful Wing—was alive. “Drift.”_

_It seemed to be all he could say. Drift grasped his hand, squeezing out a silent message._ <<I’m here. I’m right here. You’re safe.>>

_The others knelt, making as though to lift Wing, but Drift said, “No. I’ll do it.”_

_He gathered Wing into his arms._

_“You carried me to this city,” he said, so quietly that only Wing could hear. Wing’s mouth twitched into a little smile. “Now I’ll carry you.”_

 

* * *

 

 

            After the battle, there were fallen civilians to mourn—none of the Circle had been killed—slavers’ corpses to burn, and wounded to repair. Medics and translators worked their way through the creatures locked in the slavers’ ship, healing their injuries and learning their origins.

            Wing lay in medical stasis, his condition critical. A breached Spark chamber was the most grievous injury any Cybertronian could suffer. It was a miracle that his Spark had survived, and if Drift hadn’t come roaring to his rescue in a blind rage, his attacker would have easily finished him off.

            Given Drift’s protective fury when Wing was injured, Dai Atlas found it strange that Drift hadn’t returned since carrying Wing to the medbay. He kept himself busy elsewhere: he had brought Lockdown’s small ship back to the City for refits to his specifications. Much like Drift’s own frame, the ship’s Decepticon origins were rebuilt piece by piece with Crystal City’s tech.

            He didn’t say anything, but everyone knew. Drift had something in mind for this ship.

            When Drift put in a cautious request for a large quantity of energon rations, Dai Atlas decided that if nobody else was going to ask, he should. If only for Wing’s sake. At least Drift wasn’t difficult to find, spending so much time on the ship.

            “Are you that eager to be gone?” he asked the white mech’s back. Drift was familiarizing himself with the ship’s controls, but he stiffened when Dai Atlas spoke. His energy field was pulled close to his armor, difficult to read, but it sang with tension.

            “I don’t belong here,” he said.

            Dai Atlas folded his arms. He would never have dreamed, when Drift first came here, that they would one day have this conversation. “You’ve earned your belonging. You fought for Wing. You fought for the city. You are one of us.”

            Drift shot him a cutting smile over his shoulder. “ _That_ sounded like it hurt.” Dai Atlas grimaced, ruffling his plating. It had. But he’d meant it: Drift had earned his right to stay with them.

            “You may think I’m one of you, but the Decepticons still think I’m one of _them_ , and they won’t release their claim,” Drift said, his fingers tapping a restless rhythm on the controls. “Lockdown was only the beginning. Megatron won’t give up on me so easily. You have no idea what’s coming. I can’t… I can’t bring more danger down on this place.”

            “And Wing?”

            Drift twitched, his plating snapping close to his frame.

            “Redline says he can be brought out of stasis in a few days. Would you leave without saying goodbye?”

          “He was hurt because of me,” Drift muttered. “Because of what I brought here. He won’t want to talk to me.”

            “Are we speaking of the same Wing?” Dai Atlas asked, a trace of humor creeping into his normally stern voice. Drift’s engine revved softly.

            “I know what he’ll say. He’ll say ‘I forgive you’ and I don’t deserve…” He broke off, shaking his head. “It’s better this way.”

            Dai Atlas vented a slow stream of air. If forgiveness was what Drift sought, he had a long, hard journey ahead.

            “You are no longer a prisoner here,” he said finally. “You are free to go where you wish.” He turned to leave Drift alone with the ship again, with one last admonishment. “But I believe you do Wing a disservice not to see him.”

 

* * *

 

 

            Drift waited until the middle of Theophany’s night cycle, when the streets were quiet and the medbay was technically closed to visitors—as if it was hard for Turmoil’s ex-SIC to break into a medbay—to visit Wing.

            The Great Sword, leaned carefully against the CR chamber, was _looking_ at him. Considering him.

            A shiver ran through Drift’s plating as he remembered how it had felt in his hand. There was something—something _alive_ about it, something he had felt in that moment when his Spark had sung in tune with the nexus on the hilt. Something impossibly ancient, incomprehensible, with a comforting tinge of Wing’s presence. Something that had looked inside him, and judged him. In the moment they had worked in perfect tandem—one single avenging stroke against the creature that had felled Wing—but afterward, Drift had felt strangely violated. Even _afraid_.

            A sword could not reach inside him and control him. It was a piece of metal. Nothing more. Certainly nothing to fear.

            But it was _staring_ at him.

            Drift tore his gaze away, gave the readouts a cursory glance, and turned his attention instead to Wing. Although the CR chamber’s green glow cast a sickly pall across his face, he looked serene as ever, his optics dimmed in stasis. Most of his superficial injuries from the battle had healed already, leaving only scuffs in his plating. It was the wound in his chest that drew Drift’s closest attention. There was no longer a gaping hole in his Spark chamber, but the white glow of his Spark still pushed through hairline fractures in the casing.

            Drift moved closer without thinking, reaching out to rest a hand on the glass. He could still remember the fragile warmth of the guttering Spark when he had covered that tear with this same hand. The same warmth he felt when he pressed his forehead to Wing’s chest when they interfaced. And to think it had almost gone out of the world—

            Drift wrenched his hand away, staggering back a step.

            Because of him. Because of him, this city had been made vulnerable. Because of him, Wing had nearly died.

            And this… this _hurting_ , when Wing was the one in the CR chamber. Too much like Gasket. Drift was better off alone. Nobody holding him back, nobody finding their way into what little softness was left in his soldier’s Spark.

            “It’s better this way,” he said into the silence. He preferred that to choking on _goodbye_.

 

* * *

 

 

            There was a moment, when he was hovering somewhere between stasis and waking, that Wing understood the tales of those who claimed they saw their entire life pass in one pulse of their Spark when they were on the verge of offlining. One moment when he relived the battle, saw the gleam of yellow organic eyes, felt the spear smash through his plating. All of that pain condensed into one single instant, from his chest to his fingertips to his wings, searing through his systems like acid.

            In that instant he _knew_ he was dying, and he wanted to scream, to fight back against the _unfairness_ of it all. The Circle were trained to prepare for death, to accept it, to go into darkness with quiet dignity, and Wing _knew_ that, he had received the same training. Yet in that instant he was more terrified than he had ever been, all of his consciousness condensing to one imperative.

            _I don’t want to die._ Plaintive, like a sparkling: fear and need and, for once, selfishness. _Please, I don’t want to die!_

            And then a voice broke through that fear, that pain, calling his name. A face in his flickering, staticky vision: a clean-lined Cybertronian face, not the scaly horror-show of the slaver. Blue optics that echoed Wing’s own fear. He felt the warmth of a hand shielding his guttering Spark, another twining their fingers together. His circuits tingled as the hand pressed a message into them. _< <I’m here. I’m right here. You’re safe.>>_

            Caught between present and past, Wing reached out a hand, casting blindly about for the touch he needed, selfishly. His vocalizer crackled.

            “Drift…?”

            “Easy, Wing. Take it slow. You’re still hurt.”

            That… that wasn’t Drift’s voice. And this…

            Wing’s processor finished booting up, breaking free of the memory purge, and piece by piece sorted out what was real, and what was a memory. The medbay. He was in the medbay on a recharge slab. There was no spear in his chest. The plating was white, unmarred, fresh. Still integrating with his systems. Redline was there, his hands gentle but firm on Wing’s shoulders—he must have been thrashing. Drift… was not.

            “You can sit up, but _slowly_ ,” Redline warned. Wing pushed up onto his elbows, wincing at the pang in his chest. “How do you feel?”

            “Sensitive,” Wing said, reaching up to touch the new plating.

            “That will last a week or so. I don’t want you transforming for a few days, to be safe.”

            Wing swallowed down the question he really wanted to ask. “How long have I been out?”

            “You were in stasis for eight days, in critical condition for three.” Redline’s optics narrowed. “And he isn’t here.”

            Wing’s ailerons twitched.

            “I told everyone I preferred to bring you out of stasis in privacy,” Redline said. Wing’s ruffled plating soothed slightly. That… that might explain it. “I knew the memory purge could be traumatic. But, as you can see, you’ve been missed.”

            He gestured towards the table cluttered with tiny vials of innermost energon. Without counting, Wing knew there were enough for the entire Circle and a few civilians. And maybe…

            He didn’t ask if one was Drift’s.

            “Was anyone else…?”

            “None of the Circle, but some of the civilians.”

            “Civilians?!” His wings half-unfolded in his shock. “Did they find the city? What happened?”

            Redline calmly explained about Dai Atlas’s decision to lead the civilians into battle, bringing the city to the surface in the process. Wing could scarcely believe it. He’d been arguing with Dai Atlas for _centuries_ to take a more active role, to spread the Circle’s ideals instead of hiding under the ground.

            _And all it took was a critical injury,_ he thought wryly.

            “I never thought he would change his mind.”

            “Anyone can change,” Redline said. “Your Drift showed us that.”

            (Wing’s Spark gave a warm flutter at that. _“My” Drift._ But he pushed those feelings aside—Drift wasn’t his. Drift belonged to no one but Drift.)

            Finally Wing couldn’t stand dancing around it any longer. “Where is he?”

            “Drift?” Redline, for the first time, looked uncomfortable. “Probably out by the ships.”

            “Which ships?”

            “The slavers’ ship, and the bounty hunter’s. He’s been overseeing some refits.”

            About to ask why, Wing realized he didn’t have to. He knew. It was a pale echo of the spear impaling his Spark casing.

            “I… I see,” he said. “When is the launch?”

            “Tomorrow morning,” Redline said, not meeting Wing’s gaze.

            “I see,” Wing repeated. Then he gingerly swung his legs off the recharge berth.

            “Careful,” Redline said.

            “I know. I—” Wing winced, pressing a hand to the new chest armor. “I… I need to meditate.”

            Redline let the weak excuse pass with no more than a pitying glance. “Of course. Go easy on your repairs.”

            He actually did intend to meditate. He had plenty to think about.

            With Redline’s reservations in mind, Wing sat alone in a locked sparring room, optics offlined. Calm. Serenity. Peace.

            So Dai Atlas had finally decided to bring the city to the surface. Wing should be pleased. Wasn’t he the one who had urged Dai Atlas, for so long, so spread their message of peace? Wasn’t he the one who crept out to the surface for a glimpse of the stars, to feel open air on his wings? He should be delighted. It was everything he’d ever wanted, and yet—

            Wing could not sit still. He growled in uncharacteristic frustration and pushed himself up. There was more than one way to meditate, and not all of them involved stillness. Despite the twinge in his chest, he chose two practice blades and returned to the center of the room. A slow practice form, or six, wouldn’t aggravate his injuries too much, would it?

            The swords were meant to be extensions of his arms. This was meant to be a slow, steady flow of movement. Wing caught himself making beginner mistakes—his footwork was sloppy, his grip was wrong. If _he_ were training a student who made such errors, he would send him off to cool down. He tried to rein in his frustration.

            What was _wrong_ with him? No wonder he’d been defeated in battle, if his swordplay was so woefully—no. No, he couldn’t think that way. He had been at his best. His best simply… hadn’t been enough.

            He wasn’t half the knight he should be.

            The thought stung a harsh cry from his vocalizer as his thoughts finally pierced the knot that had grown in his Spark since the memory purge. Afraid to die. _Afraid to die!_ A knight should lay down his life willingly. He had stepped forward to sacrifice himself for his city, but in that instant when the blade touched his Spark, he had been a terrified sparkling. Not a knight.

            Shame burned in his Spark as his swords hummed angrily through the air. A knight was calm. A knight was unafraid. A knight was detached. A knight did not let his emotions control him. A knight…

            Wing bit down a scream and flung one of the swords. It crashed against the wall and onto the ground, and Wing took a moment’s vicious pleasure in causing a mess for once, even as he proved Dai Atlas right. Wing’s greatest flaw: he allowed his emotions to lead him.

            “Is that so wrong?” he demanded of the empty room. “I know what’s right! I _feel_ it! Should it be against our laws to do what I know I must?!”

            Peerless warmed on his back. He reached for it, as he had in battle, but this time uninterrupted by an alien spear. The Great Sword seemed to hum in his grasp, as it always had, since the day it chose him. The blue gem flared with his unquiet Spark. It seemed more active than he remembered, the shadow of a new presence. New, but not entirely unfamiliar. He knew that fire, that fury…

            He nearly dropped the sword. Instead he slung it onto his back again, the gem quieting as it left his hands.

            His folded wings twitched. He needed air.

            Despite Redline’s warning, Wing transformed and took to the night sky the minute he was outside. It was a new view, Crystal City’s towers under the stars instead of stalactites. It looked even more beautiful.

            _How_ , he thought with a pang, _could anyone want to leave this? How could he?!_

 _How… Dai Atlas, forgive me… how could_ I _?_

            With his engines howling and the wind whispering over his wings, he finally faced the crux of the problem.

            Drift had always planned to leave the city, to win his war. Wing had thought that might have changed, when Drift decided to fight alongside them, but it seemed Drift could hardly wait to go. He had always been restless, it was his way: Drift needed to move, to take an active part. He wasn’t made to stay in one place, even a place as beautiful as Crystal City.

            The night they’d first interfaced, Wing had whispered something so quietly that Drift hadn’t even heard him. _I’d go with you_. It had been a momentary impulse, one he had thought about often since, but always with a vague “someday.” Not “tomorrow.” Now… _now_ …

            Wing flew until his engines whined, until his fuel tank burned and his plating shivered and the new plating over his Spark ached; until the stars began to fade one by one and the first light of Theophany’s dawn touched the sky. He returned to the city, flying one last long circle around the perimeter.

            At least he would see the sun rise over Crystal City once.

            He transmitted an automatic response to Redline’s frantic pings as he alighted at the Citadel. This early, scarcely anyone was around, but he knew he would find who he was looking for as he moved quietly through the meditation chambers one by one.

            Dai Atlas did not even look up. “I’ve heard your friend Drift is making his preparations to leave.”

            “Yes,” Wing said, coming to a halt at a close, but respectful distance. Dai Atlas shuffled his plating in the silence.

            “I’ve never known you to ask my permission, Wing,” he said wearily. When he turned to face the smaller mech, he looked resigned.

            “Your blessing, then,” Wing said.

            Dai Atlas muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “Oh, Winglet.” Wing’s Spark twinged—how long had it been since he had heard that endearment? Not since he became a full member of the Circle, at least. Longer. When Dai Atlas’s hand settled on his shoulder, he could hear the unasked questions. _Are you sure?_ and _Are you doing this for the right reasons?_ He would not ask, because they both knew that Wing never did anything unless he was sure, and they had never seen eye-to-eye on the reasons.

            Instead, Dai Atlas said, “I always knew this day would come. I knew that, out of all of us, it would be you. Always looking beyond this place.”

            “To where I am needed more,” Wing said gently.

            Atlas’s hand squeezed his shoulder. “You are the best of us, Wing.”

            “No—!”

            “You have my permission,” Dai Atlas said gravely. “ _And_ my blessing.” He leaned his towering form down far enough to press his mouth lightly to the top of Wing’s helm. “Go well,” he said. “And, when you can, return safely to us.”

            “I will,” Wing said, voice thick with emotion.

 

* * *

 

 

            He was ready to leave. And still Drift lingered.

            He made excuses: pre-flight checks, one last inspection, reviewing his plans one more time. But everything was ready. The freed slaves were settled on board the slavers’ liberated ship, which even had a name, agreed upon by its new passengers and translated into all of their various languages. In Cybertronian it was _Storm’s End_ , but in all translations it meant more or less the same thing: an end to hardship, the beginning of peace.

            _Optimistic_ , Drift thought. The storm was over for them, but his journey was only beginning.

            _Storm’s End_ was stocked with all the supplies the representatives of dozens of alien species would need for their journey. The refugees had taken over the crewing of the ship, moving their families into the slavers’ empty quarters. The shuttle bay was full of the dropships that would bring them home as _Storm’s End_ passed their planets, moons, and asteroids. There was space for Lockdown’s little ship, now Drift’s, but for the launch he preferred to fly himself. Some symbolism there, Wing would say.

            In the middle of checking the flight controls one more time, Drift shuttered his optics. _Don’t think of him._

            Better that they launch as soon as possible. _Storm’s End_ was prepped, they had sent their confirmation a few minutes ago. There was no sense in lingering. Better to get this over with quickly, like yanking a knife from a wound.

            Footsteps tapped softly towards the cockpit. Too light for Dai Atlas or Axe. One of the Circle coming to bid him farewell, or ask him to stay, or tell him good riddance, probably.

            “Were you not even going to say goodbye?”

            Drift’s Spark pulsed bright and sharp, a stinging hurt. “Wing.”

            He turned, but couldn’t look at his face for more than a moment before guilt chewed at the corners of his fuel tank. His optics flicked down to Wing’s chest instead. The plating was fresh and clean, with no sign that he’d been injured at all. The Great Sword was in its accustomed place on his back, and he felt that it was watching him again.

            “Were you going to fly away and never look back?” Wing asked, quiet, with a hint of accusation.

            “It’s not… it’s not like that.” Slag Redline to the Pit! Couldn’t he have kept Wing in stasis for another day? “I already explained this to Dai Atlas.”

            “Explain it to _me_ , Drift,” Wing said, and Drift’s name became a weapon good as any fusion cannon.

            There were many things he could have said, but in the end, Drift opted for honesty. “You were hurt because of me.”

            “That was my choice.”

            “And this is mine.”

            He pushed past Wing—with more care than he would have taken normally, given Wing’s injuries—towards the rest of the ship. Wing dogged his heels.

            “You said this was what you wanted!” Wing cried. “I thought this meant something to you! I thought _we_ meant something!”

            “It isn’t…” Drift winced. “It isn’t _us_ that’s the problem. When we first met I promised to take these slaves home, remember? That’s what I’m going to do, and then… I have to find my own path.”

            He reached the energon store and looked inside. His optics narrowed in confusion. He’d asked for enough for a long voyage, but this…?!

            “This is too much,” he said out loud.

            “No,” Wing said softly. “It isn’t.”

            Drift whirled on him. Wing had his arms folded over his chest. Not confrontational, but resolute, with that particular stubborn set of his mouth that Drift had come to recognize.

            “Wing… I can’t ask you to do this.” His processor seemed to be having trouble getting words out of his vocalizer. Probably something to do with the way his Spark had just kicked into overdrive. “This is your home. It means everything to you.”

            “Everything?” Wing echoed, his expression softening. One of his hands brushed Drift’s wrist. “Drift, you asked me why I snuck out… why I flouted the Circle’s laws. To do what’s right. To be where I am needed.”

            His hand moved up to rest delicately on Drift’s chest, just over his Spark, as he took a step closer.

            “I have always respected your wishes,” he whispered. “Now respect mine. It was my choice to stand beside you in battle. It is my choice to come with you now.”

            Drift seized Wing’s helm by the audial flares and dragged him into a kiss. Wing moaned into it, clinging to Drift like he was the only solid thing in the universe.

            “Let me come with you,” Wing gasped. “Let me be by your side. Let us find our path together.”

            “Yes,” Drift hissed. “Yes, _yes_.”

 

* * *

 

 

            “ _Storm’s End_ is set for launch,” Wing said from the copilot’s station. He hummed thoughtfully. “I’m rewriting the registry now. What should we call her?”

            His smile was infectious. Drift shrugged and looked away before he caught it. He wasn’t good at this stuff. Naming things, giving them meaning. He’s have been happy to just call it “the ship” or something. But if it was important to Wing… “I don’t know. You decide.”

            Even when he wasn’t _looking_ he could feel that smile brighten.

            “Hmm.” Wing’s fingers clicked on the controls for a minute.

            “We’re set anytime,” Drift reminded him. He hated long goodbyes.

            Wing leaned into the comm console. “This is _Wayward Light_ , requesting clearance to leave.”

            “Acknowledged, _Wayward Light_.” The big bot himself, Dai Atlas’s voice coming over the comm. “You have your clearance. Good luck.”

            “Then what are we waiting for?” Drift said, taking the controls. “Let’s get started.”


	2. It's Full of Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes don't talk about the things they should, and break in the hab suites instead.

            The creature on the comm screen had bluish-gray skin of fine scales and two pairs of sea-green eyes, one atop the other, blinking in eerie tandem. Its delicate gills undulated slowly.

            “Three Arcadroids,” he said. Drift could _barely_ understand him. His translation protocols covered most of the major galactic languages, but more than that hadn’t been necessary for a Decepticon soldier, and this creature had an unusual dialect. He kept missing words. Fortunately, Wing’s translation protocols were apparently _loaded_ with all manner of languages, dialects, and accents.

            “We’ll make the Nalva System our heading, then,” Wing said, or at least Drift was reasonably certain he did. “It’s close. At _Storm’s End_ ’s pace we can reach it in a week.”

            “You will save fuel if _Wayward Light_ docks with us,” the refugee said. (Drift assumed he meant _Wayward Light_. What he really said was more like “wandering star,” but the meaning was close enough.)

            “Thank you, Halet’h,” Wing said. “For now we are still testing how she runs in deep space, but we will dock with you soon.”

            “We appreciate all you have done for us,” Halet’h said with a formal little bow and a flare of his gills. Drift’s translator couldn’t handle the word he tacked onto the end, but it made Wing stiffen subtly.

            “Just Wing,” he said, giving a simplified Cybertronian pronunciation—phonetic only. Halet’h wrapped his strange mouth around the sound and blinked twice.

            “Understood, Wing-friend. Over and out.”

            “What’s that he called you?” Drift asked as the comm screen blinked out. Wing shifted.

            “Back-From-Death,” he said. “Someone must have told them…” He shook his head and shrugged, but Drift knew he was disquieted.

            “I guess some people don’t know what a CR chamber is for.”

            Wing tried a smile. He touched the new plating on his chest. “I _thought_ I was dead.”

            “So did I,” Drift admitted. He reached out—the cockpit was small enough that he could touch Wing from his station—to brush his fingertips against the folded wings on his back. “I guess they found out we’re not that easy to kill.”

            Wing nudged into the touch, his mood lightening. He changed the subject quickly.

            “So this was Lockdown’s ship?”

            “Right. But your people helped me redesign her.”

            Wing hummed, running a hand along the console’s familiar lines. At least he wouldn’t get too homesick. “So he’s dead?”

            “No, he got away.” Drift scowled at the starfield. He had a feeling they hadn’t seen the last of Lockdown.

            “Why didn’t he take his ship?”

            Drift snorted. “He had a city full of angry Cybertronians on his tailpipe. He grabbed the closest thing with an engine and ran for it like the coward he is.”

            Wing grinned sidelong at him. “You think he’ll mind?”

            “He’s welcome to come back for it. I owe him a rematch.”

            “You held your own.”

            “Yeah, well. All that training was good for something. I must have learned something while you were throwing me around.”

            Wing’s smile flashed again. “You _are_ improving, Drift. I’ve noticed, even if you have not. And you… you defeated the slaver?”

            “Well, that was mostly…” Drift made a vague gesture towards the Great Sword leaning against Wing’s console. “That doesn’t count.”

            Wing tilted his head in that inquisitive way of his. “What happened?”

            “I killed him,” Drift said flatly. “That’s it. So a week? Think we can keep from getting space-fever?”

            Wing was silent for a moment, watching Drift; then he smiled, chipper again, letting Drift change the subject. “I can operate comfortably in a vacuum, so if I get cramped, I can go outside. It’s _you_ I’m worried about. I suppose it’s too much to hope that you will learn to meditate peacefully in the next few days.”

            “I bet you can think of some way to keep me occupied,” Drift said with a crooked smirk, planting a foot on Wing’s chair.

            Wing’s optic ridges rose innocently. “We can clear enough space in the hold for sparring…”

            “Yeah, you smacking me around isn’t _exactly_ what I had in mind.”

            “Pity. Well, in that case…” Wing stood and stretched indulgently. His wings unfolded and flexed experimentally; Drift resisted the urge to catch one, but by the way Wing smiled, he’d seen the way Drift’s optics followed each movement as the wings tucked back into place. He slid the Great Sword into its channel on his back. “I suppose we should choose hab suites.”

            “Habitation suite” was a rather generous term for the tiny compartments that ringed the upper deck. Lockdown had converted one to a medbay, and the one next to it into a brig. So “choose” also turned out to be overly optimistic, since Drift had already decided which of the remaining two was his. Wing slid open the door of the next hab suite and Drift followed him in.

            “This one’s mine,” he said.

            “Oh,” Wing said. “Well. It looks like my decision was made for me.”

           “That’s what you get for being in a CR chamber for a week. Last choice of hab suite.” Drift stepped forward, sliding his hands over Wing’s hips. “But as long as you’re in here anyway…”

            Wing grinned. “Already?”

            _You almost died_ , Drift thought. _I thought I’d lose you forever, but here you are, with me._

“We’re alone in a room for the first time since the battle, and you expect me to hold back?” he asked.

            “When you put it that way,” Wing said, stepping back until his legs clinked gently against the berth, leading Drift like a shadow. His hands alighted on either side of Drift’s helm, pulling him into a kiss. Drift made an embarrassingly needy sound into it, sliding his arms further around the jet. His fingers brushed the Great Sword and he jerked his hands away as though burned. He’d never been quite so… _aware_ of it before.

            “Did you _have_ to bring that if you knew what we were… nnf… going to do?” he grumbled into Wing’s mouth.

            “I thought we were choosing hab suites,” Wing said; his unconvincing tone wasn’t helped by the amused gleam of his optics. “How was I to know?”

            As soon as the sword was leaning against the wall, Drift pressed back into the kiss, pushing until Wing sat down hard on the berth.

            “Ow.”

            “Sorry.”

            Drift let him lie back and get comfortable before climbing on, kneeling between Wing’s thighs.

            “Take it easy on me,” Wing said sheepishly, brushing a hand across his new plating. “It’s not exactly what we had in mind, but…”

            Drift nibbled on Wing’s mouthplates, settling his hand on top of Wing’s. “I’d never hurt you,” he murmured.

            In the light of Wing’s brilliant smile, he shifted so he could get his fingers under some sensitive wiring. Wing purred, shifting minutely. He arched up just enough to let his wings unfold, twitching in invitation. Drift smoothed his hands along the delicate plating.

            “Don’t know why you ever put these away,” he said, teasing an aileron.

            “One,” Wing said, “we’re going to be stuck on a tiny spaceship for weeks at a time, and there really isn’t room for them. Two…” He chirred in pleasure as Drift explored the joints one by one. “They’re sensitive.”

            “Mm-hm.”

            “Three, they’re distracting… _nn_ …!”

            Apparently he liked having the wingtips tweaked. Drift filed that away even as he grinned. “Distracting?”

            “To _you_ ,” Wing grumbled, but his Spark wasn’t in it, not with the way every piece of him arched up towards Drift for more touch. Drift happily gave it to him, taking his time with the sensitive new plating of his chest, lovingly mapping his sides.

            Then he stopped. Wing keened, optics flicking on.

            “What’s wrong?”

            Drift shifted. “It’s… the sword,” he muttered. Wing turned his head to look at the Great Sword, leaning against the wall next to the berth.

            “What about it?”

            “It’s _staring_ at me,” Drift said. “I can’t concentrate.”

            Wing didn’t laugh at him—he knew more about the Great Swords, and about Drift, than that—but he did let the smile tug at his mouth as he levered up onto his elbow and carefully lowered the sword to the floor, edging it slightly under the berth, out of sight.

            “Better?”

            “A little.” Drift slithered further down Wing’s body. His hand slid between the jet’s legs to brush against his panel. Wing’s hips twitched upwards, the panel sliding open eagerly. He sighed as Drift’s fingers circled his valve.

            They hadn’t had much time to thoroughly explore each other’s bodies between the time they first interfaced and the battle with the slavers, and most of their overloads had been tactile. Drift had brought Wing to overload with his fingers in his valve twice before, but that was about the extent of it. Well, plenty of time now to familiarize themselves.

            “Drift,” Wing gasped when Drift dipped his fingers inside. He was already slightly slippery from the thorough exploration of his wings.

            Wing squeaked in surprise when Drift lifted his hips, getting his shoulders under the jet’s knees. His new plating gave a slight twinge, but that was completely forgotten when Drift’s glossa teased the rim of his valve. “ _Drift_.”

            “Remember, take it easy,” Drift reminded him with a wicked smirk. Wing’s hands clawed at the berth as Drift ducked his head and _oh_. N-not strictly perfect technique, but he was _earnest_ , and a fast learner. Wing swallowed a cry when Drift’s glossa went questing for all the most sensitive nodes. The grounder’s hands supported his hips, thumbs tracing little circles on the armor. Wing didn’t really need the support—his entire body arched up on its own, trying to press closer. His head tilted back, optics going offline, and his mind was full of stars.

            Drift’s glossa helped him through his overload, demanding and giving all at once. Wing’s cooling fans roared as he cried out harshly. It took every ounce of what control he had left not to squeeze his thighs around Drift’s helm, but then the charge dissipated through his frame and into the berth. He laughed without knowing why as Drift carefully lowered his hips back to the berth.

            “You okay?”

            “ _Better_ ,” Wing said, optics coming back online in time to see Drift’s crooked grin. “I… thank you. For that.”

            “I don’t want Redline flying out here to lecture us,” Drift said, moving back up his body. “Don’t want to hurt you.”

            Wing shifted aside. “Over. Roll over.”

            It only took a little give in Drift’s struts for Wing to come smoothly out on top, just like sparring. He comfortably straddled Drift’s midsection, black fingers skimming white armor.

            “Your turn,” he said with his brightest smile, the one that made Drift’s Spark flutter. He leaned down for a kiss, sliding his fingers under Drift’s spaulders at the same time. As with many of Wing’s kisses, it turned into an affectionate nibble. And as usual, Drift’s engine revved under his hands as he bit back. Wing grinned into it, hands racing to find all the most sensitive spots he’d found through weeks of sparring. Drift’s cooling fans kicked up another notch.

            “Cheating,” he growled—possibly closer to a groan.

            “You know me,” Wing said, unashamed, pressing their foreheads together as he grinned at his lover. “I don’t _always_ play by the rules.”

            Drift grumbled something incomprehensible, his hands running along Wing’s thighs. Wing could feel every twitch as his fingers played with sensitive wiring. “You like it?”

            “Yeah,” Drift muttered.

            “Then it’s not,” Wing kissed him again, “cheating.”

            He straightened and rocked his hips backward until he could feel Drift’s spike. Drift jolted, engine revving noisily.

            “Drift,” Wing said, a little hesitant for the first time, “do you… would you like…”

            “Yes,” Drift groaned. “Yes, _yes_.”

            Wing angled his hips just right to catch the tip of Drift’s spike at the rim of his valve. He sank onto it with a roll of his hips, settling comfortably, and both of them moaned.

            “Wing,” Drift moaned. Wing rode him oh-so-slowly, savoring every moment as he rolled his hips in little circles. “Wing , I _need_ …”

            “We’re ‘going easy,’ aren’t we?” Wing reminded him, amusement mixed with pleasure. “And besides, patience… _nn_ … has its rewards.”

            “You learn that from the Circle?” Drift quipped, planting his feet on the berth to rock his hips up. Wing grinned mischievously.

            “They taught me everything I know,” he said, with a clever little move that had Drift’s optics flickering.

            He braced his hands on the berth on either side of Drift’s head, the better to drink in his reactions. He liked seeing his partners lost in pleasure, Drift even more so.

            “I couldn’t handle your sword staring at me, what makes you think I can handle you?” Drift grumbled abruptly.

            Wing ducked down to kiss him. “I didn’t expect you to be so shy.”

            Drift snorted, but Wing could tell he was embarrassed. “I’ve done kinkier stuff than this.”

            “Oh, I believe you.” He rubbed their nasal ridges together and confessed, “I love watching you.”

            Drift’s fingers dipped into the seam at his waist as his hips twitched up, getting his spike a little deeper to make Wing gasp. “All right.”

            Wing didn’t want to make him uncomfortable—he didn’t have to see everything to _feel_ Drift’s pleasure in every shift of his body. He rested on his forearms, close enough to exchange kisses and nips as Drift spiraled higher.

            “Wing,” the grounder gasped. “Too _slow_ —frag—”

            Wing crooned soothingly at him, running his hands all over Drift’s helm—so new, his last upgrade from New Crystal City—from his jaw to the tips of his finials. “Shh, shh… trust me…”

            Drift whined, wound tight from his approaching overload. Wing worked his valve’s calipers around Drift’s spike, resting their foreheads together. “Show me, Drift. Show me.”

            Drift’s hips stuttered, his engine roared, and he snarled into Wing’s mouth as he toppled into overload. Wing rode it out, moaning at the sensation of transfluid seeping out around Drift’s spike.

            “What do you know,” Drift sighed. “I guess you _can_ overload going that slow.”

            Wing laughed, nibbling on his glossa. “Told you so.”

            He gave Drift a moment to recover before easing off of his spike, tucking his body up against Drift’s side with one leg tossed over him. Drift’s hand slid up his thigh, finding his own transfluid leaking out of the valve. Wordlessly he pressed his fingers inside. Wing moaned, squirming—he was running hot again, but he hadn’t wanted to ask—and Drift nipped at his mouthplates.

            “There you are. Doing okay?”

            Wing nodded frantically. “I’m fine. I’m… _nn_.”

            He rocked his hips, trying to get more. Drift’s fingers retreated to tease the sensors just inside the rim.

            “Mm, nope…” There was more than a little Deadlock in his grin as he avoided giving Wing everything he wanted. “Didn’t you say patience has rewards?”

            Wing managed a laugh, even as he tried to press his aching valve down onto Drift’s hand. “I did. Turnabout… _ah_ … is fair play. I s-suppose.”

            “Then be patient,” Drift said, pressing kisses all along his jawline until Wing stopped squirming. “That’s it.” He pushed his fingers in deep again. “That’s good, Wing. You trust me?”

            Wing nodded, barely restraining himself from squirming on Drift’s hand. Drift’s mouth moved along his audial flare.

            “That’s good. Shhh-shh… I’ve got you.”

            Wing whined as those far-too-clever fingers worked him, wringing him out to the very edge of his considerable patience. “Drift…!”

            “Can’t follow your own rules?” Drift’s sharp grin flashed teasingly at him. “Ask nicely and I’ll let you off this once.”

            “ _Please_ , Drift, please…!”

            “Good,” Drift said, his fingers suddenly driving, demanding. Wing writhed, his cooling fans working overtime. Drift’s engine purred in contentment. “I see what you mean about watching.”

            As much as Wing loved watching, _being_ watched was even more potent. Knowing Drift’s optics were focused on him, knowing Drift could feel every little pleading squirm, sent fire blazing straight to Wing’s valve. He overloaded on Drift’s clever fingers, a messy spill of lubricants and Drift’s transfluid. Drift’s fingers gave his oversensitized nodes one last fond rub before pulling gently away.

            “Mm. Slow is nice and all, but that was more fun.”

            Wing laughed wearily, tucking his face into Drift’s neck. “Fine. I concede.”

            Their cooling fans were still running on high, but neither of them wanted to move, even if it was hotter curled up together.

            “How’s the wound?”

            “Holding up.”

            Wing propped his chin on Drift’s shoulder, smiling at him. Drift almost said _I’m glad you’re here_ , but instead he rubbed a spot just behind Wing’s fins to make him purr.

            Wing butted his head against Drift’s chin, gently. “We really _should_ dock with _Storm’s End_ now.”

            “But I like having you all to myself.”

            “I think we’ll have plenty of time to ourselves in the future,” Wing pointed out.

            Drift grumbled, but his Spark wasn’t in it. “Fine. Fine. If you say so.”

            At least something good would come of shepherding freed slaves across the galaxy. It might keep Wing from getting curious about what had happened at the end of the battle. At least it would give Drift an excuse to keep avoiding the subject. This other thing… this thing with the sword… that could wait.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't expect all the updates to be this fast! This was a miracle. I happened to wake up this morning with it in my head.
> 
> I doodled a quick layout of the _Wayward Light_ over [here](http://full-autopsy.tumblr.com/post/92561635122/whipped-this-up-real-fast-for-my-fic-wayward).


	3. Turns-From-Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes hit a stumbling block.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! I spent the time writing various scenes from later on, though, so updates should be generally quicker than this in the future. Also, keep your eyes open for a side story soon!

            _Storm’s End_ was teeming, positively _seething_ , with organic life-forms, pitiful refugees. One thing Drift could say was that he had never been so gladly received in his entire life. The freed slaves recognized him and Wing, of course, and every one of them wanted to make its appreciation known. What, he wondered, would gutter-rat Drift have thought of so many smiles, so many greetings in so many languages, directed towards him? What about Deadlock?

            Drift was utterly unused to people actually being pleased to see him. He drew closer to Wing, feeling self-conscious. His instinct was to scowl, to fluff out his plating to intimidate the watchers, but he shoved that instinct down. They meant no harm. He managed a neutral expression, keeping close to Wing’s elbow. The jet could be gracious enough for both of them.

            Wing, of course, accepted the attention with good grace, smiling at all of them and returning greetings in a dozen strange languages. He glanced back at Drift and his energy field skittered with amusement, brushing and sliding soothingly across Drift’s. Drift’s field rippled, sullen. He would rather be on _Wayward Light_ , alone with Wing. He had a few more ideas about all the things he’d like them to do in private.

            Wing’s field warmed with a lick of echoed desire, tempered by patience. _There will be time_ , it seemed to say. _Plenty of time._

            Drift had explored _Storm’s End_ before, but Wing had been in the CR chamber during the refits, so Drift indulged his eagerness. _Wayward Light_ , docked in the shuttle bay, would still be their personal quarters, but they would ride in _Storm’s End_ ’s belly to conserve fuel until the last of the refugees were safely home. So he pointed out fuel storage, living quarters, and washracks as they passed by. Wing’s plating gave an eager ruffle at that last one.

            “That will be nice,” he said. Drift’s engine rumbled in agreement.

            “Wing-friend! Drift-friend!”

            It was Halet’h’s slightly bubbly voice—not cheerful-bubbly, but literally as though he were speaking underwater bubbly. In person he was smaller than he appeared on the comm screen in _Wayward Light’s_ cockpit. He stood just about to Drift’s waist. Shorter when he bowed, hands spread and gills flapping.

            “Welcome aboard _Storm’s End_ ,” he said. “We are honored to greet you.”

            Wing returned the little bow. Drift did not. Halet’h didn’t seem to mind.

            “Our people still remember when yours were known as a helpful species,” Halet’h said. “You do your ancestors proud.”

            “Only too happy,” Drift said, straight-faced. “After all, helping another is the highest calling one can aspire to.”

            Wing’s expressive energy field spiked like tiny needles against his as the jet made a choking noise he turned into a polite cough. Unlike Halet’h, _he_ could feel the relentless subvoc sarcasm and pointed teasing.

            Halet’h nodded sagely. “Wise words,” he said, and once again he tacked on a final word that Drift’s translator stumbled over. Wing’s energy field fizzed in surprise, but he gave no outward sign.

            “You will let us know if there is anything else we can do,” Wing said, serene as ever to alien ears.

            “You are already doing more for us than we dreamed,” Halet’h said. “Please. The hospitality of _Storm’s End_ is yours, if we can make the journey more comfortable for you.”

            Drift stepped in before the politeness judo escalated any further. “Yes, thank you, we’ll let you know,” he said, nudging Wing’s arm. Wing and Halet’h bowed _again_ by way of farewell.

            Wing kept his silence as they headed back towards their ship, keeping his energy field drawn close. Drift didn’t think he was _too_ irritated. Then again, Wing had always been good at hiding any negative emotions from him. Until their confrontation before leaving Crystal City, Drift had never seen him angry once, no matter how much he deserved it.

            Wing didn’t break his silence until they were safely up the ramp into _Wayward Light’s_ hold.

            “ _Very_ funny, Drift,” he said drily. “And I do _not_ sound like that.”

            “Are you kidding?!” Drift said, unable to keep a straight face any longer. He made sure to layer all of his most Wing-like subvocs. “You sound _just_ like that. That’s _exactly_ what you sound like.”

            Wing retaliated with a staggering exaggeration of Drift’s subvoc tones. “Oh, honestly.”

            “You do, and _this_ is your arguing-with-Dai-Atlas spectrum when you get all worked up about protecting the innocent and helping the helpless.”

            “That’s it,” Wing threatened, dropping into a crouch. “I can’t stand by and take this from the likes of you, Decepticon.”

            Drift leapt at him. Wing pivoted around him. Drift managed to dodge a sweeping foot, but the jet caught his arm and locked his elbow joint with a deceptively gentle touch, then ducked and sent Drift flying over his shoulder. Drift hit the floor in a roll and came back up onto his feet, vents whirring in excitement. If there was one skill he’d definitely managed to pick up, it was being thrown without damaging himself.

            He came in low at Wing’s legs, but Wing sidestepped him again, his energy field warm with pleasure. For all that the Circle of Light were supposed to be peaceful, Wing rarely seemed happier than when displaying his skills. It was almost enough to forgive him for handing Drift his aft five times a day. At least every time Drift hit the ground, he got to look up at a dazzling smile.

            It ended as it usually did: Drift facedown on the ground with Wing’s weight resting on his lower backstruts, one arm twisted up behind his back.

            “Do you yield?” Wing asked. Drift thrashed uselessly, with a frustrated growl, but he was still grinning. Wing rode the movement easily.

            “Fine,” Drift said. Wing laughed and shifted his weight so Drift could sit up, then offered a hand to haul him to his feet. His fans were whirring.

            “Made you work for it that time,” Drift said.

            “A little,” Wing acknowledged with a grin.

            “And now’s the time you tell me you’ve been holding back all along.”

            “Never,” Wing said, an innocent sparkle in his optics. He stepped in close to brush a kiss across Drift’s mouthplates, but darted just out of reach when Drift tried for more.

            “Fraggin’ quick,” Drift muttered, though it was hard to be grumpy with Wing’s kiss still warm on his mouth.

            “You’re getting better. I promise.”

            Drift poked at a dent in his plating. “What did Halet’h call me back there?”

            “Oh.” Wing gave him a shy smile. “Turns-From-Darkness.”

            Drift’s plating ruffled. “I guess someone told them my story.”

            “Wasn’t me,” Wing said. “I was in the CR chamber the whole time.”

            “Back-From-Death and Turns-From-Darkness,” Drift said. “We make quite the pair.”

            “Yes,” Wing said quietly. He reached out and just barely intertwined their fingertips, as though uncertain how Drift would take the affectionate touch. Drift pressed their hands closer, examining the interplay of the black fingers, the clean lines of New Crystal City’s designs, meant for more elegant pursuits than war.

            “Speaking of stories,” he said, “you never told me yours.”

            “I don’t have a story,” Wing said.

            “I don’t believe that. Who were you before all this?”

            “All this?”

            “The war. The Circle. All this.”

            “No one interesting, I’m afraid,” Wing said with a wry smile, shrugging one shoulder. Avoidance, from someone normally so open and talkative. Drift gave him a pointed look. “It was a lifetime ago, Drift. When joining the Circle, a knight is expected to leave the past behind.”

            “Why did you join the Circle, then?”

            “To find a path,” Wing said. That wry smile twisted again. “I suppose we’re still looking, aren’t we?” He squeezed Drift’s hand, then let go. “I think I’ll meditate.”

            Drift felt as though he’d stepped too near some boundary as Wing settled down right where he was, pulling the Great Sword from his back in one movement and laying it across his lap—like a barrier. He’d never had that _way_ with people that Wing had. That Gasket had had. The words didn’t come easily to him. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

            “You didn’t,” Wing said. “And I didn’t mean to disappoint you. I know our ways can be as strange to you as the Decepticons’ are to me.” His energy field reached out to reassure Drift that all was well. “Would you care to join me?”

            Drift knew a peace offering when he saw one, even though he grumbled as he settled down across from Wing. “You know I’m not good at this.”

            “There’s nothing to be good _at_ ,” Wing said. “It’s meant to be a relaxation, not a chore.”

            His ventilations were already settling, his fans quieting to a whisper. His optics faded to a dim glow.

            “What am I supposed to think about?”

            “Think about nothing,” Wing said, as though that were the easiest thing in the world. “And then you’ll…” He broke off with a little laugh. “Never mind. We’ll keep it simple. Just try to clear your mind.”

            Drift’s plating shifted and he vented a little huff.

            “You know you don’t have to do it this way,” Wing said, smiling a little, but with the faintest hint of exasperation. Drift knew it was because every time he fragged this up, Wing had to interrupt his own perfect meditation to start Drift on something else. But he settled himself down stubbornly.

            “I can try again,” he said. “I want to know what it’s like for you.”

            Wing’s fingers slid absently along the Great Sword’s hilt, making the gem glow faintly. “All right,” he said. “Just try to relax, Drift.”

            So Drift shut off his optics and tried. It seemed like every little creak _Wayward Light_ made was a dozen times louder. Little pings and tones from the cockpit made him twitch. Even the sound of his own vents was too loud. And he could never settle properly. His plating was rubbing wrong, or a cable was twisted, or a wire was pinched, and he couldn’t sit still.

            Think about nothing? How the frag was he supposed to think about nothing? He was a warrior, he had instincts. There was something here he just wasn’t getting, and the harder he tried, the further he was from “relaxed.”

            “Drift?” Wing’s voice was quiet and sleepy. “You don’t have to…”

            “Do I have to shut my optics off?” Drift asked, onlining them.

            “Whatever works,” Wing said. He still sounded like he was half in recharge. “The point is to do whatever makes _you_ comfortable. Your way doesn’t have to be the same as mine.”

            Drift hummed in acknowledgement, letting Wing slip back into whatever he had been not-thinking about. If thinking about nothing made him think about _everything_ , what if he focused on just one thing? Just one thing to hold his attention?

            So he focused on Wing’s face. One he knew well by now, after all the time they’d spent together. Now he let himself inspect as though seeing Wing for the first time. His attention drifted in a spiral from Wing’s mouth up the graceful lines of his audial fins, along the shapes of his helm, down to his shoulder. He explored the clean planes of his armor, the brief glimpses of vulnerable wiring at his joints, the bold flashes of red. He lost himself in the lines and curves that the Circle of Light had developed into their signature. Wing looked so different from any of the soldiers Drift had known with the Decepticons, built for power and endurance and intimidation. Wing’s armor was a visual representation of the Circle’s teachings. Everything working in harmony, flowing together, a careful balance of form and function.

            On a sublevel of thought, Drift noticed that his vents were running smooth and even, and the only tension in his wiring was to keep him upright. Pleased with himself, he kept his focus on Wing.

            It didn’t happen all at once; it was so subtle that it took Drift some time to realize what he was seeing. But the nexus of the Great Sword gleamed between Wing’s fingers, growing brighter, softly pulsing in a slow rhythm, like the thrum of a Spark. It was enough to jar Drift’s focus. He hadn’t seen Wing slip this deep into meditation for a long time, not since New Crystal City. His fault, admittedly. And not since—not since before Drift had held the Great Sword.

            At least, for the moment, the sword wasn’t watching him. It was focused on Wing. But Drift still eyed it like a live grenade. What was it like for Wing now? Did he feel that presence, ancient and powerful, whispering in his Spark with words too old to understand? When he’d held the sword in battle, Drift had felt something vast pulling on him like a singularity. Was that where Wing was now, lost in that vastness? How would he find his way back, and would he be the same when he did?

            A shiver worked its way up Drift’s spinal plates. “Wing.”

            “Drift,” Wing said, but in a slow and sleepy voice entirely unlike his own, as the nexus of the Great Sword flared. Drift’s short-lived relaxation vanished utterly, leaving him wound tight and frozen in place. He needed to go to Wing, hold him, reassure himself with touch, but he didn’t dare go near the Wing-that-was-not-Wing while the Great Sword held him. It took a long moment to find his voice again.

            “Come back,” he said.

            Slowly, too slowly for Drift’s liking, the blue glow around the sword faded. Wing’s plating rustled. Finally his optics flickered online.

            “Drift?” he asked, his same familiar voice. “Are you all right?”

            Drift’s battle systems were running, sharpening his perception and pushing back unnecessary processes. He pushed up from the floor, engine revving hard. Wing’s optics followed him, concerned, but he wasn’t the only one watching—Drift could feel the heavy attention of something much older, much less familiar. Wing’s energy field reached out, but Drift pulled away, snapping his field close to his plating.

            “Drift,” Wing said again, slowly getting up. The light caught the blue gem of the Sword still in his hand and Drift jerked back as though shot. “What is it?”

            All of his instincts screamed _THREAT_. Drift felt that great emptiness yawning before him, a voice beyond his comprehension calling him to leap in.

            “Can’t,” he gritted out. And he did what Deadlock never would have done. He retreated. He ran.

 

* * *

 

            _Storm’s End_ carried its passengers faithfully and well through one small corner of space, one planet at a time, returning refugees to their homes in dropships. And Drift kept running. _Storm’s End_ was several times larger than _Wayward Light_ , easy enough to find some space, get some distance. It wasn’t Wing he was avoiding. It was the Sword.

            _What can it do to you?_ he berated himself. _It’s a sword. It’s a piece of metal and a pretty bit of shine. It can’t hurt you._

            And he was still afraid.

            If Halet’h or any of the others thought his behavior strange, they never mentioned it. It was Wing who looked at him in concern, when they were in the same room, his energy field flickering tentatively outward, supplicating, confused and apologetic.

            But it was the Sword that judged him, and Drift knew if he let it, it would find him wanting. What good could it find in an ex-Decepticon? A soldier, more deaths on his conscience than he’d be able to count? A gutter rat? No matter how they’d reformatted him in New Crystal City, there were stains he could never wipe clean. He wasn’t like Wing. He wasn’t beautiful or compassionate or serene. He was good at killing, that was all. Well, killing, and running away. He’d run from the gutters, he’d run from Turmoil, from the war, and now he was running from Wing.

            He was nursing the last of his energon ration when his comm pinged. Wing.

            _//We need you on the bridge.//_ His signal gave nothing away.

            _//Understood,//_ Drift answered. _//I’ll be there.//_

            He took the trip in altmode at reckless speed and unfolded into root mode at the bridge. Halet’h, Wing, and one of the refugees—furred, female, about to Drift’s chest—were clustered by the viewport, looking out at the dusty gray planet.

            _Pyrrhus_ , an alert pinged to Drift’s HUD, leftover data tagged with Decepticon coding. A planet he knew? Should know?

            Then he saw the other ships at high orbit over the planet. Cybertronian cruisers, impossible to identify as Autobot or Decepticon at this distance, but the impact was the same: they may have run away from the war, but the war still pursued them.


	4. A Lot More Than Words And Guns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which faith is tested.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY I LIED. "Chapter 4" turned out longer than I expected, and it had a convenient POV/theme change in the middle so... voila, it's actually two chapters. Expect the second ghost when the bell tolls... wait. Okay. Well. Probably I'll finish it tonight, so. Tomorrow.

            “Pyrrhus,” the female refugee said. Ayyka. “My homeworld. But it…” She laid a furred hand against the viewport, staring at her planet. “It never looked like this before.”

            “And never had Cybertronian cruisers above it,” Wing said. He looked at Drift, then quickly away, as though the weight of his optics might scare Drift off. “We were hoping you might identify whether they are Autobot or Decepticon.”

            “Not at this distance,” Drift said. “Have they sent any signals?”

            “We are receiving now,” Halet’h said. “They are hailing us for a visual feed.”

            Drift drew closer and examined the registry. “It isn’t a Decepticon code,” he said. “Probably Autobot, then.”

            “Should we answer?” Halet’h asked.

            “You’d better. They’re liable to get itchy trigger fingers if you don’t.” Drift took Wing’s arm and pulled him aside, out of visual range of the comm unit. “We’re not here.”

            “We understand, Drift-friend.”

            “But we’re neutral,” Wing protested quietly. “We have nothing to hide and nothing to fear.”

            “Not everyone plays by your rules,” Drift said. “Trust me, Wing. All being neutral means is that _both_ sides have a reason to hate you.”

            Those were the most words they’d exchanged in… far too long.

            Wing had some idea what was bothering Drift, but for the moment his attention was thoroughly diverted. Yes, he remembered the start of the war, when the Circle and the other refugees had fled Cybertron, seeking refuge among the stars. The war had followed them for so long, both sides—Autobots and Decepticons alike—full of sneering disdain for the ones who fled. Of course it would be no different now.

            The comm screen blinked to life and a Cybertronian face appeared. Green armor, blue visor, Autobot insignia on his shoulder.

            “Unknown ship, you have entered Autobot space. Identify yourself and state your intentions.” His subvocs were suspicious, but not immediately hostile. Without his energy field, Wing couldn’t be sure.

            Halet’h stepped forward into full view, giving his formal bow. “This is _Storm’s End_. We have no quarrel with the Cybertronians and no part in your conflict. We carry refugees, freed slaves. One of our number is a native of this planet.”

            He beckoned Ayyka forward.

            “This is not Autobot space,” she said. “It is Pyrrhic.”

            Drift’s plating shifted anxiously. Wing reached out to touch his arm, but hesitated at the last moment. Drift had been so… determined about avoiding him. He would not welcome a touch now, even for comfort.

            Despite Drift’s concern, the Autobot on the screen did not look angered by Ayyka’s words. If anything, he looked uncomfortable.

            “One moment,” he said. The comm screen winked out.

            “Are they likely to attack?” Halet’h asked.

            “Autobots? Not without some warning shots,” Drift said. “He’s got to check things with his commander.” His dark subvocs suggested he was thinking about his own former commander, Turmoil. Drift hadn’t told Wing much about him, but it was enough.

            “What’s happened to my planet?” Ayyka whispered, staring at the dusty globe. “It should be… it should be _green_.”

            “The war happened,” Drift muttered.

            With a pop of static, the Autobot appeared on the comm screen again.

            “Since you _are_ Pyrrhic,” he said, “we will permit you to land.”

            “Thank you,” Halet’h said. “We will send a drop shuttle to the surface.”

            “I’ll go,” Wing said when the comm screen flicked off. Drift bristled.

            “Not a good idea.”

            “I want to see for myself what this war has left behind,” Wing said. Perhaps he spoke a bit more sharply than usual, or perhaps his words bit into some mass of guilt Drift carried, as part of this war, because Drift’s mouth flattened into a thin line.

            _It’s no longer his war_ , Wing told himself, but until recently Drift had always insisted he needed to return to the fight. And now, with Drift suddenly so spooked, what if he decided to go through with it? What if he went somewhere Wing couldn’t follow?

            What could Wing do then—return to New Crystal City, alone, defeated? Go crawling back, tie himself in knots with Dai Atlas’s laws? No. He would not be passive. He would not be _docile._

            He’d almost cleared the bridge, Ayyka at his heels, when he heard Drift curse.

            “Wait. I’m coming.”

 

* * *

 

            Drift wouldn’t look at him in the shuttle. He sat examining one of the blades he’d taken from Crystal City, thumbing the edge. Wing doubted he would use it—their landing coordinates were clear of life-forms, with the nearest settlement some distance away—so he knew it was a distraction. Another avoidance. He sighed, looking away. Ayyka sat with her arms tucked around herself.

            “Are you all right?” he asked.

            “It looks so different,” she said. “Nothing like the home I remember.”

            “Have you been gone a long time?”

            “Years. I wonder if I will recognize anything. I wonder if they will recognize me.”

            “I haven’t seen my homeworld in…” Primus. How long now? “…a very long time,” he admitted. “I know how you feel.”

            “Touching down,” the pilot, another of the refugees, called from the front of the shuttle. Drift slid his sword back into its sheath, taking up a position near the ramp. He rode the shuttle’s slightly rocky landing like any veteran soldier. Graceful when he needed to be—when he wasn’t thinking about it. Wing’s gaze sank lower, appreciating the unconscious roll of Drift’s hips. It really had been a while. He’d gotten so used to little casual touches with Drift, and he missed it. As soon as they solved this, Wing would never take it for granted again.

            The ramp opened to let in hazy gray light. Drift took a few cautious steps down, then jerked his head in an all-clear. Ayyka was past him in a flash. Wing brushed his hand against Drift’s as he passed, but Drift twitched away.

            When Wing stepped from the ramp, he forgot all about Drift’s rebuff. The shuttle had landed in a flat gray plain. The horizon was indistinct, the air still thick with smoke that burned in his vents.

            Ayyka stood stock-still, staring at the nothingness, her ears flattened to her head.

            “How did this happen?” she whispered. “This… this all used to be a forest.”

            Wing knelt, scooping up a handful of the fine ash and letting it run through his fingers. In the end he held only fragments of charred bone. So much life, reduced to this. Dust, ash, and bone.

            Autobot, Decepticon, both were at fault here. He looked up into the hazy sky as though he could still see the cruisers overhead, battling each other and bombarding troops on the ground, annihilating the native life-forms. It was easy to picture. He had seen the start of the war on Cybertron, before the Circle had evacuated. Now, after all this time, it was like a memory from a dream, or a nightmare.

            “How can one species cause so much damage?” Ayyka said. He pulled his gaze from the sky to find her watching him, bitterly, seeing in him the ones who had done this. And, in a way, they were all responsible. All Cybertronians, by action or inaction, had contributed to this handful of bone.

            Wing let the shame bite and burn. The Circle of Light were supposed to be the best their kind had to offer: their scientists, their philosophers, their _peacemakers_ , and what did they do but hide? Perhaps now that New Crystal City sat on the surface of Theophany, rather than buried beneath it, their message of peace might spread, but it was far too little and far too late.

            Too late for this planet. Too late for their own.

            “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it changes nothing, but… I am. Sorry. Truly.”

            “It changes nothing,” Ayyka said. She nodded stiffly. “But thank you for bringing me…” Her voice caught. “…home. May your own homecoming be more welcome.”

            She trudged away from the drop shuttle, looking tiny and fragile among the devastation as her feet lifted clouds of ash.

            _Cybertron_. Was this, Wing wondered, what awaited him if he ever returned there? Was _this_ what had become of them?

            Drift’s EM field prickled cautiously against his, tight and cold with his own reaction to the ruin around them. For an instant, Wing wondered how many battlefields like this Drift had stood on. Or rather, Deadlock. How many dead he had left behind. How many fragile worlds had been crushed in his wake. But the thought crumpled. He could not hold himself above Deadlock the soldier, not with the Sword’s weight between his shoulders. A symbol, an artifact, but still a weapon, forged for combat.

            He and Drift had had this conversation before, early on in New Crystal City, when Drift still glared at everything, kept his hands near the nonexistent holsters for his lost guns, never smiled. He had been a prisoner. A necessity, however unpleasant.

            They had been sparring, until Wing called a halt. Drift had been exhausted, but he had too much pride to ask for a respite. Drift was nursing a dent on his chest, his fans gradually quieting from the high of sparring. Wing still felt the energy humming through his lines, but he was chasing his calm. Sparring with Drift was—exhilarating. Of course the Decepticon was untrained in their way of fighting, Wing’s way, but he didn’t lack for strength or determination or focus. He was trained to be fast, brutal, to clear a path or hold a breach, and that killing power was focused on Wing every day. Yes, he knew that Drift was _aiming_ to maim or even kill him if he could. It lent the fight that sharp edge of urgency, a thrill Wing hadn’t tasted in so long. Perhaps, _perhaps_ Dai Atlas was right in his caution, if Drift was already affecting him this way.

            “So tell me something,” Drift said, sardonic rather than curious. “If you’re supposed to be all about peace and love and harmony, why are you a fighter? Your precious Circle is so scared of war, but you carry around massive swords.”

            “The Great Swords are artifacts,” Wing said, looking over at the wall of their sparring chamber, where Peerless waited patiently. “We do not use them in combat.” _Unless we must_.

            “Still a symbol,” Drift said. “I don’t look at a mech who carries a giant sword and think ‘pacifist.’ I don’t call a mech who fights like you a ‘pacifist.’”

            “Every one of the Circle has a choice of function,” Wing said. Drift’s optics flashed at that, and for a moment there was a quiet shared memory between them: prewar Cybertron, under the Functionists, when a mech’s altmode mattered more than his own choice. “Some are engineers, scientists, or medics. They guide and serve those who need them. Some are teachers, philosophers, or scholars. They keep the memory of Cybertron’s culture alive and pass it on to others.” He shrugged, his flightpanels ruffling. “I am a warrior. I defend those who cannot protect themselves against any who would do them harm. Between us we represent the three functions of the Circle: to serve, to teach, and to protect.”

            “Still boils down to you having fighters in your oh-so-perfect utopia.”

            Wing gave him a wry smile. “We respect life, Drift, but that doesn’t make us blind or stupid. There will always be people who thrive on the suffering of others. We use our skills to defend ourselves and those in our care. I fight when I must, to protect what we’ve built here.”

            “Fighting for peace,” Drift said.

            “A necessary paradox,” Wing admitted.

            Now, kneeling in the ash of what was once a forest planet, Wing felt doubt creeping in.

            “Is this what we are?” he whispered, letting shards of bone slip through his fingers one by one. “Fighting for peace. Destroying everything around us.” Drift didn’t answer, but his EM field prickled again, a tentative brush against Wing’s. His own form of comfort.

           “I can’t… this can’t be what we were made for,” Wing said, louder. Endless war. Struggling, fighting, killing. When Vector Sigma had forged him, when he had been carefully harvested from Cybertron’s surface, this cannot have been the future he was meant for.

            Were the Circle just fooling themselves? Was it possible to be a pacifist when your entire species seemed built for destruction?

            The weight of uncertainty pressed him down, curving his spine. “We’re better than this.”

            “Maybe we’re not,” Drift said. “Maybe this _is_ what we are.”

            “No.” The conviction in Wing’s voice startled even himself as he stood, wings flaring out in defiance. _No_. After everything he’d told Drift, everything he’d tried to teach him, how could he abandon his faith now? “I don’t believe that. We aren’t just machines. We aren’t just weapons. All of us possess the capacity for good. All of us can change.”

            Drift, to his surprise, had the smallest quirk of a smile on his face. “That’s more like it,” he said, with a gently teasing imitation of Wing’s harmonics, _again_. “I was going to ask ‘who are you and what did you do with Wing,’ but this worked even better.”

            Wing managed a smile. Drift. Drift, at least, was better than this. He could have faith in Drift.

            He looked across the ash plain to Ayyka’s tiny shape trudging towards the distant settlement. She still looked small, but no longer so fragile. She had survived. Her people survived. At long as they survived, they could rebuild. The forest would regrow in time. And no war, not even theirs, was forever. Autobots, Decepticons, they could still change their natures.

            He turned towards the ship, but paused for a moment beside Drift, who didn’t pull away this time when Wing rested his hand lightly on his chest and leaned up to kiss his cheek.

            “Thank you, Drift.”


	5. The Abyss Gazes Also

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which fears are faced, FINALLY. And in which our heroes let off some much-needed steam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...aaaand here's the rest of it. Plus, hey! Some messy sticky. Time to update the tags...

            He’d never seen Wing like that before. Wing was the one who pushed him, who harped on the good in everyone and honoring and respecting all life, and it had been intensely wrong seeing him hesitant, uncertain, doubting. Drift had him pretty well figured out, though: if he couldn’t say something to himself, make him say it to Drift, and convince himself in the process.

           Even with Wing cheerful again, Drift still didn’t relax until Pyrrhus and the Autobot cruisers were far behind. _Wayward Light_ was quiet and safe and… and frag it, what he _really_ wanted was to get Wing in his hands again. One little kiss on the cheek wasn’t nearly enough. Drift hadn’t realized just how much he’d come to anticipate Wing’s casual touches throughout the day—a brush of their hands, a nudge of elbows, a chaste kiss in passing. And of course the interfacing. That was nice too.

            He knew it was childish to hide from a fragging sword. Especially if it meant avoiding Wing. He was a soldier! He’d faced down worse than this.

            No more hiding. He left his generously-named hab suite, took a left, and almost ran straight into Wing, who had apparently had the same idea. He steadied them automatically, one hand on each of Wing’s arms. The buzz of his EM field was… intoxicating.

            “Wing. I was… just…” He trailed off, because the long black hilt of the Great Sword was missing from over Wing’s head. He craned his neck, trying to be subtle. Nope. Wasn’t there.

            “I know it’s bothering you,” Wing said softly, “and we need to talk about—”

            He cut off with a squeak when Drift lunged at him, crushing their mouths together. Wing’s back clunked against the wall. His hands came up to trace the lower rim of Drift’s helm.

            “We… we really _do_ need… to talk about… it, Drift,” he managed between kisses, but his hips rocked just as insistently against Drift’s as Drift’s did against his. It _had_ been kind of a long time.

            “Later,” Drift growled, as Wing caught his lower lip between his fangs and tugged. He slid his hands down Wing’s sides and under the skirting panels, hiking him up against the wall and sliding a leg between his thighs. Wing balanced on his toeplates, burying a moan in Drift’s mouth, then relaxed enough to rest more weight on Drift’s thigh, grinding his heated panel against the smooth metal. His pinned wings gave a helpless little wiggle.

            “Can’t tell you all the stuff I want to do to those wings of yours,” Drift muttered. Wing hummed, arching his back.

            “Why not?” he asked mischievously. “I’m listening.”

            “Because you like the sound of my voice…” Drift purred straight into his audio, and Wing swallowed a whine, his interface panel clicking open. Worked every time. Drift ducked his head to chew on Wing’s throat cabling, peeking down the triangular planes of Wing’s body to get a glimpse of his pressurized spike, white and red and pretty as the rest of him. “…and this is gonna be too fast already.”

            He hitched one of Wing’s legs higher to get better access, opening his own panel at the same time. Wing had other ideas, but just as good, Drift decided dazedly as the jet wrapped a hand around both of their spikes at once. Heated lubricant was just enough to lessen the burn while keeping the friction at the perfect level as Drift growled and thrust against him, wrapping his hand around Wing’s. Wing’s other hand stroked gently up the back of his neck, then grabbed onto one of his helm finials, pulling his head back hard. Drift’s engine revved, all but drowning out his shout. Wing’s head leaned against the wall, but he was still watching Drift, his smile showing a hint of sharp little fangs. His optics glinted with mischief.

            “That’s good, Drift,” he said, giving a long, slow rock that felt like it lit up every sensor on Drift’s front. What Drift meant as a growl came out more like a whine as that unyielding grip on his finial angled his head back a little further. Drift strained forward, trying to catch that teasing smile, but Wing’s grip was strong. His hips pressed forward instead, rubbing their spikes together insistently. “Good,” Wing said again, his voice pitched lower than usual, tight and pleased. He leaned forward just a little, easing Drift’s head forward until their lips almost touched. “You like when I take control?”

            Drift’s engine purred in response as he tried, again, to catch Wing’s mouth, but Wing tweaked his finial, keeping them microns apart.

            “Let’s make… a deal,” Wing whispered, his optics flickering in pleasure as he rocked his hips. Lubricant seeping from around his valve cover smeared Drift’s thigh. “You… give me this, and… I will let you do… what _ev_ er you want… to my wings.”

            “Deal,” Drift said, raw and needy. The best kind: one where they both got what they wanted on both sides. He felt his overload approaching in a storm of charge, and he could see it in Wing: the tension in every cable, the way his plating shivered, the erratic squeezing of his hand around their spikes. Wing’s optics on him, hungrily drinking in every minute shift in his expression, finally tipped him over the edge. Unable to muffle himself in Wing’s mouth or neck as he usually did, he roared out his overload, tossing his head against Wing’s tight grip. He almost missed the spectacle of Wing writhing against the wall, shamelessly grinding his valve down onto Drift’s thigh, unusually quiet except for one chiming cry.

            Wing’s hand finally slipped off of Drift’s helm, letting him slump forward, mouthing at Wing’s jaw and the bottom of his audial flares. Wing hummed as Drift let him rest his weight on the ground again. He lifted his hand, examining the silver slickness of transfluid that dripped from it.

            “Kind of a mess,” Drift muttered, half apologetic, but his vocalizer glitched when Wing brought the hand to his mouth and dragged his glossa up from the palm to the tip of his first finger. The jet made a wicked little noise, like savoring some strange Crystal City treat, but never took his optics off Drift’s as he slid his first two fingers into his mouth. Drift tried not to show just what that was doing to his interface equipment. He knew Wing had a talented mouth but he’d never actually had it anyplace _really_ sensitive.

            “That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing a good little knight should do,” Drift said. Wing slid his fingers out with a wet sucking pop.

            “The Circle’s tenets,” he said, his voice delightfully low as it always was after overload, “have surprisingly little to say on interfacing.”

            Drift caught his wrist before he could start in again and took the next finger into his own mouth, not to be outdone. Wing’s smile widened as Drift made sure to do a thorough cleaning job indeed.

            “And is this something a good Decepticon soldier should do?”

            “Only the best ones,” Drift said, and licked the rest clean.

 

* * *

 

            “Tell me,” Wing said quietly.

            They sat on the edge of the berth in Wing’s hab suite, and the Great Sword was spread across Wing’s lap, pommel towards Drift. Drift thought he was doing an admirable job of not scooting away. He glared at it in suspicion, and the feeling, he thought, was mutual.

            He pulled his gaze away from the Sword and into a corner of the room. He was no storyteller.

            _So make a report, Deadlock._

            Never too good at reports either.

            “We were all fighting,” he said bluntly. “Me and Lockdown. You and Braid. Everyone and everyone else. There was a blast. I looked up and you were… I saw him…” He vented a harsh gust of air. _Make a report._ He pushed all the emotion from his voice. “You were going for the Sword when he stabbed you. Saw you go down. Thought you were dead. I fought him hand-to-hand, and with swords. He overpowered me. That’s when the reinforcements hit.”

            “From the City?” Wing asked softly, trying not to interrupt.

            “Right. He was distracted, watching them come. You were right there next to me. The Sword was lying there, from when you’d dislodged it. So I went for it. And when I touched it I…”

            His vocalizer caught. _Make your report_ , he commanded himself viciously.

            “It hurt,” he said. “Like I’d grabbed a live wire. And in here, it hurt.” He jabbed at his chest. “Felt something looking at me. Something big. And not just at me. In me, or through me. It saw… everything. Everything I am, everything I was. Like it _knew_. But I couldn’t stop looking at you, remembering what he did to you. I was angry, and…” He made a vague motion towards the Sword. “It was angry. And I just… moved. I didn’t think. I didn’t plan it. I just moved.”

            “Did it hurt then?”

            “No. Didn’t hurt. Felt like it didn’t weigh anything. It was like I wasn’t even injured. One swing, and that was it.”

            “That was it.”

           “I wasn’t doing too great and the battle was mostly over, Dai Atlas and the others had cleaned up pretty well. We took you back to the city and…” He shrugged. Wing knew the rest, more or less.

            Wing nodded. He vented slowly, considering his words. “Drift… what about the Sword makes you nervous?”

            “It controlled me,” Drift said instantly. “It knows stuff about me, things I never told anyone. It looked inside me. I don’t… I don’t like that.”

            “I understand,” Wing said. “The Great Swords can be unnerving, especially to the unprepared.”

            “You told me some scrap about them using Spark energy when you fight.”

            Wing’s mouth twitched upward. “Does it sound like scrap now?”

            Drift shuddered, resisting the urge to clutch at his chest. “No. I was wiped out after.”

            Wing nodded again. He rubbed his fingers up and down the flat of the blade, over the ancient symbols engraved near the hilt.

            “Are you afraid of me, Drift?”

            “Never.” Awed, perhaps, respectful, when he saw Wing fighting the slavers in a whirlwind of light and death, but never afraid.

            “Then you should not,” Wing said, “fear this. It _is_ me, Drift. We are connected. We’re… more than connected. There are mysteries the circle’s laws forbid me to reveal to you, but I can say that the Great Swords choose their bearers. The sword chose me, Drift. It chose me, and then it chose you.”

            Drift recoiled. “But I’m not one of you. I’m not… I’m not _like_ you. I never asked for this!”

            “Exactly, Drift. The Great Sword cannot, _would_ not bond in that way to an unwilling Spark. But when you picked it up in battle… Drift… when you touched it, how exactly did it feel?”

            Drift remembered. Oh, he remembered. “Like… like standing too close to the darkmatter drives. Like trying to grab an ion ray. Hot. _Burning_. And then…” He stumbled. “and then… not. Like it didn’t weigh anything. Like I wasn’t even holding anything.”

            He got the sense that Wing was choosing his words carefully. “Great Swords are selective, Drift. If it hadn’t chosen you, if it hadn’t wanted you to hold it, you would have known. Immediately.” _And painfully_ , Drift thought he would have said, if he weren’t trying to gentle Drift through this. Or even _fatally_. He got that feeling. “When you took up the Sword in battle, you acted as one. You did not wield the sword, nor did it control you. You acted _together_. As you and I would. Did. As partners.”

            “Some partner,” Drift muttered.

            Wing’s shoulder fins twitched as he eyed Drift sidelong. “Drift,” he said cautiously, “if you’re willing, I might be able to, well, introduce you, so to speak. With me as an intermediary, you might find it less… intense.”

            “And if I’m not willing? I don’t want to be ‘friends’ with it. I just want it to lay off me.”

            Wing sighed. Oh, Drift knew that body language. _Drift is being sooo unreasonable again._

            “This is part of me, Drift,” he said. “This is who I am. And if we’re going to be…” He hesitated. Drift hung on that pause, even though he wasn’t sure what word he’d put in it either. “…if this is going to work, this is a part of me you’ll have to accept, sooner rather than later.”

            Drift glared at the Sword. It glared back.

            “What do I have to do.”

            “We’re going to meditate,” Wing explained. “Just like we did before. Try to relax, whatever it is you did. Only this time, you’ll come with me.”

            Wing must have sensed his hesitation. He leaned forward and brushed a kiss against Drift’s mouthplates.

            “I swear,” he promised, staring straight into Drift’s optics, “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

            “All right, I’ll do it,” Drift muttered, ducking his head away from that earnest gaze. Wing beamed brighter than a sun. He took Drift’s hand and shifted it onto the Sword, right over the blue gem. Drift wanted to pull away, but Wing’s hand was warm and comforting, and hadn’t he promised himself he’d stop running?

            “Relax, Drift,” Wing said. “Don’t be afraid.”

            “I’m not…” _Blatant lies alert._ He grumbled, and instead, looked down at their hands, Wing’s fingers gently interlaced with his, black on black. There were so many delicate cables and fine joints that he could get lost in the maze of their fingers. Focus only on that. Concentrate on that. And the blue glow of the gem peeking through their fingers. The feeling of being watched. The warmth of Wing next to him, radiating calmness and focus, and slowly Wing pulled him in.

            It was as though he stood at the edge of an abyss. Below him was something older than either of them, something gazing back at him, waiting. _A leap of faith,_ he thought, and would have scoffed had he not been so overawed.

            Wing had been here once, he thought. Wing must have felt the same doubt, hesitating on the brink of a fall from which his wings couldn’t save him. But he had done it then, and he had done it since, and if Wing could do this—

            _I’m right here, Drift_ , Wing seemed to whisper, and Drift felt a squeeze on his hand, a head resting on his shoulder, the comforting weight of another body tucking against his side. And together they leapt, and what Drift had taken for darkness was light, open and overpowering, like the sky he had sometimes glimpsed from the Dead End, or the giddy oblivion that had edged into his processors when he was boosting. Old and vast and alien, but not wholly unfamiliar—even this strange great presence was tinged with Wing. His optimism, his mischief.

            And Wing was _here_. All of him, not the echo in the Sword—they were both connected to the Sword, and Drift could reach him through that connection. A smile and the shine off his plating and the sunlight glow of his optics. Strength and laughter. And the Sword, a part of him as much as he was part of it, giving him patience. A two-way bond.

            The presence gave a gentle nudge—like a polite cough, reminding Drift why he was here. Again the heavy weight of the Sword’s full attention shifted to him, straight to his core. Sorting through experiences and memories and the moods and emotions that made _him._ Gutter rat, soldier, killer, whatever he was now. His hunger, his anger, his violence, and past that, _through_ that, into some place he’d never looked inside himself. And like some giant rolling over in its sleep, it subsided, content. Accepting if not welcoming.

            And he needn’t have worried about getting back, because he was simply sitting on the berth with Wing as though nothing had happened, staring into his gold optics, and Wing’s hand lifted suddenly from his on the Sword to touch his cheek.

            “Drift?” he said, and then he was stumbling over words in a way Drift had never heard from him. “Are you all right? I’m sorry… I know it can be difficult… the first time is… we train for _years_ before we’re allowed to… are you all right?”

            _Worried about me_ , Drift realized. Endearing. Wing kissed him on the lips, then the nasal ridge, then the lips again, sweeping his thumb up Drift’s finial.

            “I’m fine,” he said, even though he didn’t want Wing to stop kissing him. “Fine. Really.” And a name sprang from his vocalizer. “Peerless,” he said, testing the full spectrum—the name carried a longer history than Drift could imagine in its subvocs. And something _familiar_.

            Wing’s expression changed, shock and pleasure at once. “Drift,” he said. “It _told_ you.”

            “But that’s _your_ name,” Drift said. He’d heard those subvocs before, when Dai Atlas addressed Wing before the entire Circle. Wing’s full-spectrum name included the identity of his Great Sword.

            “It’s our tradition,” Wing said. “The Great Sword is so much more than a weapon. As I said, as you’ve seen now, it becomes a part of us.”

            “I never told you,” Drift said, awkward—he hadn’t offered this to anyone, truly, in so long—“my name. It’s pronounced…”

            He gave his full-spectrum name slowly, rather than the pure phonetics he’d given when they’d first met. It had been a long time, and his name had changed as much as he had with Deadlock tucked into its harmonics and his current uncertainty in his subvocs.

            Wing repeated his name back to him, carefully. He smiled. “Thank you for telling me, Drift.” And this time he had replaced the uncertainty with subvocs of belonging and affection. It had been a long time since anyone had said his name like that. Wing kissed him again, his hand sliding over Drift’s shoulder. “You’re so brave.”

            “Not as brave as you,” Drift muttered.

            Wing made a sound that should have been a laugh, but his EM field shivered and pulled close to his plating. Not like Wing to avoid anything.

            “Something you want to talk about?” Hey, Wing made him deal with the fragging Sword, Drift could make him deal with whatever was bothering him.

            Wing set the Great Sword aside and swung a leg over Drift in one fluid movement, straddling his lap. “I think we’ve talked quite enough,” he said, with a teasing nibble at one of Drift’s finials. “Don’t you?”

            _Sneaky little thing_ , Drift thought in admiration, gladly letting Wing push him flat on the berth.


	6. Save The Last Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last of the refugees returns home. Does this count as a beach episode?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a tiny baby chapter! Awwww!

            Approximately eighty percent of Merseia’s surface was covered in water. Its people lived primarily in floating cities, with the largest settlements on the scarce land. _Storm’s End_ would be a boon to this place. It sat on the cliffs overlooking the beach, surrounded by excited natives.

            Drift tried not to think about how much sand was getting into their pedes as he and Wing stood on the beach near the tideline. Halet’h’s gills had taken on a healthy color, waving in the sea air.

            “You have our deepest thanks, Wing-friend, Drift-friend,” he said with a formal bow. “You will be remembered as family, blood-of-our-blood. We never thought we would breathe our home’s air. We are proud to finally show you our planet.”

            “It’s beautiful,” Wing said. “So full of light.”

            _And life_ , Drift added silently. The ocean didn’t look like much, but the readings had been off the scale.

            “It is our deepest hope that you will return one day to your planet,” Halet’h said. “Your world of light and steel.”

            Not the Cybertron Drift remembered. Nothing like this open space.

            “Wing-friend,” Halet’h said abruptly. “You have done more for us than we ever would have hoped. Please, let us ask you for one thing more.”

            “Name it.”

            “We would see you fly, as you would in your home. It would bring us joy to see you as you were meant to be.”

            Wing beamed and flared his flightpanels. “It will bring _me_ joy, Halet’h-friend,” he said, the alien tongue rolling effortlessly from his vocalizer. He turned that smile on Drift and his energy field nudged outward, unusually shy, brushing against Drift’s awareness. Some sort of invitation, but Drift had no idea what it meant, or how he was supposed to reply.

            Then Wing’s engines fired and he lifted off in a swirl of sand, folding into altmode as he spiraled upward. Drift had seen his altmode before, but briefly, streaking across the underground city from Wing’s home to the Circle’s citadel. He had never, he realized suddenly, seen Wing _really_ fly, under the open sky.

            And it—and he was beautiful. The sun gleamed off the planes of his streamlined armor as he darted through the air, dodging invisible obstacles. Flashes of white, red, and silver, teasing. Even in altmode there was no mistaking Wing. He brought the same grace to flight as he did to sparring, to everything he did.

            “It is small wonder that he returned from the deepest dark,” Halet’h said with a palpable tone of awe. “Even the lady of the darkest seas could not bear to take such beauty from the world.”

            A touch poetic, perhaps, but even Drift felt he could understand poetry now, seeing Wing turn barrel-rolls and playful loops, describing shapeless forms in the air, glyphs without sound and yet with infinite meaning.

            “You are fortunate, Drift-friend.”

            Even Halet’h’s words could not distract him from Wing’s dance—there was no other word for it. It took him several slow moments to process them.

            “Fortunate?”

            “Such a one is a gift,” Halet’h said. “Do not squander it.”

            It occurred to Drift that he should be worried—after all, Wing had not flown properly for months, and now it seemed he was pulling every stunt in his arsenal—but he felt nothing except possessive pride. Wing flew with such absolute confidence that there was no question of his abilities.

            “Thank you, a thousand times,” Halet’h said. He waded into the hissing sea. Drift made an abortive gesture to wait, glancing up towards Wing. Halet’h smiled. “This is how we will remember him,” he said. “And we do not believe for an instant that this dance is for us, Turns-From-Darkness.”

            With that he slid gracefully into a wave. He submerged briefly, then leapt from the water in a graceful spin—above him, Wing rolled in a dizzying corkscrew, waggling his wings in salute—and vanished into the depths.

            Wing spiraled above him, showing no sign of tiring. Drift wished suddenly, desperately, that he could fly, work his way into the openings in Wing’s dance, learn this like a sparring form. Earn Wing’s smiles and approval, add to the beauty of the display.

            And now that he was looking, he knew exactly what this was, what Halet’h had meant. This was not only a flight to stretch sky-hungry wings. This was a courtship display.

            The realization sent a warm fizz into Drift’s Spark, pleasure warring with hesitation, confusion. Wing was… too beautiful, kinder, more mischievous and delightful than Drift deserved. Drift was a gutter rat, a soldier, an exile. And still Wing had chosen to come with him.

            Drift transformed, now heedless of the sand, and took off across the beach and up the narrow track to the clifftops. Wing’s armor flashed in the alien sun as he painted one last nonsense glyph in the sky, then came in for a landing, transforming to root mode on his descent. Drift put out his arms unthinkingly. Wing slowed only slightly, but Drift caught him and turned with his momentum, as though they were sparring, and they spun together, Wing’s laughter lighting his energy field. When they stopped, Wing’s vents were running high, his optics feverish, his fingers interlaced at the back of Drift’s neck.

            “Thank you,” Drift said. “That was…” He hesitated, embarrassed, but his energy field did the talking for him. Wing trilled wordlessly, pulling him into a kiss, deep thorough, wanting. His insistent fingers skimmed under the lip of Drift’s helm, his hot engines thrumming their vibrations deep under Drift’s armor.

            Drift pushed a leg between Wing’s thighs and Wing moaned, nibbling on Drift’s lip. He ground his heated interface panel against the metal of Drift’s thigh. His vents blended with the rise and fall of the waves below them as Drift’s fingers slid under his armor, savoring the stark contrast between wind-chilled plating and hot circuitry. Wing rocked more insistently, tucking his face into Drift’s neck, nipping and lapping at his cables. His fans kicked up still higher as he trembled. Drift dragged him still closer to his peak, hands moving back to the still-extended wings. Wing cried out, pressing back into the touch. The delicate flightpanels shivered, and excess charge stung Drift’s fingers as he explored the joints of those elegant wings.

            It was all Wing could take. He buried his broken cry of release in Drift’s mouth, driving his panel down on Drift’s hard thigh. Drift swallowed the noise, drawing Wing’s overload out into one long, shuddering, blissful eternity as the waves crashed.

           Wing nuzzled beneath his jaw, slowly folding in his wings. “It’s beautiful here,” he murmured, a non sequitor, his field rippling in contentment. Drift still felt as though he should say more, do more, to make sure Wing knew that he understood the value of what he had been given. He settled for another kiss.

            “Alone at last,” he quipped, raising his head to look at _Wayward Light_ , waiting a short walk down the clifftop. “Where to next?”

            Wing rested against him, staring across the ocean to the horizon. “Up to you,” he said finally, an offering. “Where you go, I go.”


	7. Together Into The Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the past comes back to haunt our heroes, with a vengeance.

            “I’m thinking of… something… black.”

            “Space.”

            “Wow. You’re good. Ten points for you.”

            “Thank you, I try.” Wing laughed. “Maybe it’s time we found a different game.”

            Drift spun the pilot’s chair in lazy circles. Stars. Wing. The hab suite doors. Stars. Wing. “Probably right. You pick.”

            “Again?”

            “I don’t know a lot of games.”

            Wing pulled his legs up, spinning his chair too. “Questions and answers?” he suggested.

            “What’s that?” Drift asked suspiciously.

            “Just what it sounds like. One of us asks a question, and the other answers honestly. Or the asker comes up with a forfeit.”

            “What sort of question?”

            “Anything,” Wing said. “You can always pay the forfeit instead.”

            “Something tells me you’ll be a lot better at this than I am. What’s to stop us from lying?”

            Wing shrugged. “Lying is against my vows. You? Just your honor.”

            “Fine,” Drift muttered. “You go first.”

            Wing hummed, fluttering his wings. “Let’s see. If you could have any altmode for a day, what would it be?”

            Drift had been expecting something more invasive, and was caught off guard. “Oh. That’s it?”

            “That’s my first question.”

            Memories of Wing’s display on Merseia flickered through his processor. If he had one day to be anything: “Same answer as everyone, I guess. I’d want to fly.” For some reason his answer embarrassed him and he tried to shrug it off. “Probably a harder question for you. Seems like anything would be a step down.”

            “I don’t know,” Wing said. “I always wondered what it would be like to be a two-wheeler. So flexible.” His toeplates nudged Drift’s shin. “So many possibilities.”

            “So _that’s_ where this game goes.”

            Wing grinned. “It can. The point is to learn things about people. Your turn for a question, Drift.”

            “What’s the hardest thing about being a knight?”

            “Here I am with my silly altmode question and you pull out the existential ones,” Wing said. He laced his fingers around his knee, under the stabilizing fin, taking a moment to think. “For me, the hardest of our tenets is denial of self.”

            “I find that hard to believe.” Wing was probably the most selfless person he knew. Nothing like the Decepticons he’d known, all scrambling to get ahead, take more for themselves. It had been like that in the gutters too. Except for Gasket. He’d been… a lot like Wing.

            “Dai Atlas would disagree,” Wing said. “He says a knight shouldn’t attach himself to anything. Or anyone. He says I am controlled by my emotions.”

            “So according to Dai Atlas you’re not allowed to care about anyone or want anything.” Drift snorted. “Sounds like a stupid way to live. No wonder he’s got a gearstick shoved up his exhaust port.”

            Wing was quiet for a moment. “Dai Atlas and I,” he said finally, “do not always agree on our interpretation of the Circle’s tenets. Next question: what is one thing you genuinely enjoy?”

            “You mean besides killing people?”

            Wing sighed. “Yes, Drift. Besides killing people. And interfacing, that’s too easy.”

            “Killing people and interfacing just about sums me up,” Drift said. Wing’s exasperated look made him put his hands up in surrender. “All right. All right.”

            He rubbed a finger back and forth along a jagged edge on his side while he thought. _One thing you genuinely enjoy._

            “In the gutters,” he said slowly, focused on the rough plating, “at night we used to find a spot where we could see a slice of sky. Take a look at the stars. I mean, city lights and all, we could barely see anything, but it was still more beautiful than anything we usually saw. Guess I used to look when we were out in the cruiser, with the Decepticons. Could see a lot better from out there.”

            “And do you still do that?” Wing asked.

            Drift shrugged, still not looking at him. He didn’t like reminding Wing that he’d been a guttermech. “Not really. All starts to look the same after a while. You’ve seen one starfield, you’ve seen them all.”

            “You should never let yourself get desensitized to beauty,” Wing said. Drift snuck a glance up to find Wing smiling at him. “I’d like to watch the stars with you sometime.”

            “We’ve got nothing _but_ time,” Drift said. “And lots of stars. Okay, my turn. What’s your real name?”

            Wing’s optic shutters clicked. “My name is Wing.”

            “Never gamble, you can’t bluff for scrap. Doesn’t sound anything like a proper name. Your subvocs go back, what? A few thousand years? You’re older than that if you remember the Functionists.”

            “I’m afraid you’ll have to think of a forfeit,” Wing said, with a rueful half-smile. “I can’t answer.”

            “Fine. Then tell me why not.”

            Wing sighed. “All right. When joining the Circle, an initiate is expected to give something up to prove their commitment. Someone might take a vow of silence or chastity, or give up high-grade. A possession, a habit, even a body part—anything, as long as it holds meaning for them. I gave up my name.”

            “But…” A name was more than a collection of phonetic syllables. It communicated so much in its subvocs and harmonics: a mech’s origin, age, function, commander, rank, killcount, conjunx or amica endura, a full-spectrum name included all of it and more. Wing hadn’t just given up a word, but his entire history.

            “So you can’t tell me what it was.”

            “I wouldn’t answer to it,” Wing said. “I am Wing. That is the name the Circle gave me.”

            “I wouldn’t _call_ you by it. You’re Wing to me. Just thought I’d like to know.”

            “I gave it up. I’m not that person any more, no more than you are Deadlock.”

            “But I _am_ Deadlock,” Drift said. “People can change, but the past is still part of them. It doesn’t go away. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

            Wing considered this, his chair turning in another lazy circle until Drift put out his foot to steady him. For a moment Drift thought he might relent.

            “It’s against my vows,” he said finally, with the little twist of a smile.

            “Because you’re so good at following the Circle’s rules,” Drift said. Wing’s smile widened.

            “Point taken. Maybe someday.”

            A light blinked on and an insistent tone sounded from Wing’s console. He sat up straight, the smile vanishing as Drift leaned over for a look.

            “It’s a proximity alert,” Wing said. “Cybertronian. They’re coming fast.”

            Drift took over piloting functions, but it would be a few minutes before the faster-than-light engines were ready. He didn’t like coincidences at the best of times. What were the odds of running into another Cybertronian ship in deep space? Not excellent, unless someone were deliberately tracking them. And the only way a ship could get this close without being picked up sooner by their sensors was if it had stealth capabilities. That wasn’t promising. His mind leapt instantly to the worst possibilities.

            “What’s the registry?” he asked. _Not them. Not them. Anything but them._

            “It’s Decepticon code,” Wing said, quietly. “You tell me.”

            The comm unit popped to life.

            “Unknown Cybertronian vessel, this is cruiser _Vengeance_. Respond or we’ll skip the pleasantries and get straight to the shooting.”

            “Oh, no,” Drift breathed.

            It could… _technically_ … be worse. He’d braced for the worst possible scenario, the one where the Decepticon Justice Division caught up with them, the one where—if he had the courage—Drift would kill first Wing, then himself, to spare them both the unimaginable suffering to come.

            For the DJD, though, that was just a job. This, _this_ was personal.

            “Stall,” he told Wing. His hand hesitated over the commands that would link his console to the ship’s weapons. Now _that_ was one way to commit suicide. That ship was Victory-class. More firepower than five _Wayward Light_ s.

            “ _Vengeance_ , this is _Wayward Light_. Please state your intentions.”

            “Shut down your engines and prepare to be boarded.”

            “On what grounds?”

            “On the grounds that my guns are locked on your ship.”

            _Wayward Light_ jerked, throwing them both back in their seats. Drift checked the FTL drives again. Not ready.

            “ _Wayward Light_ , that was a warning shot. Don’t think we don’t see that FTL drive powering up. Once again: shut down your engines and prepare to be boarded.”

            “Decepticon cruiser, we are unaffiliated Cybertronians and this is neutral space.” Drift had to hand it to Wing: he kept his head in a crisis. He didn’t even sound _worried_ , though his energy field flickered with tension. “You are acting in contravention of the Tyrest Accord, section sixteen ten, and we have a right to speak to your commander.”

            “You really don’t want to,” Drift hissed.

            A different voice came over the comm. Not strictly _new_ to Drift. A soldier’s voice, with the barest semblance of patience and civility.

            “Only too happy. This is Commander Turmoil. You are harboring a war criminal and a fugitive from Decepticon justice, contravening section seventeen twenty-one of the Tyrest Accord. Did you think you could run forever, Deadlock?”

            “Nobody on this ship answers to that name.”

            Turmoil’s voice dropped into his more accustomed snarl. “Don’t play games with me. You remember _Vengeance_ ’s specs, don’t you, Deadlock? Turbolasers, ion cannons, proton torpedoes, and you know you’re in range. Try to run and I’ll grind you into so much dust.”

            They exchanged glances.

            “He’s telling the truth,” Drift said. “We wouldn’t last ten kliks.”

            “What do you want to do?” Wing asked.

            “The only thing that might get us out alive,” Drift said. He cut power to the engines.

            “A good tactical decision, for once, Deadlock,” Turmoil’s voice said. The channel went dark.

            “We’ve got a few minutes,” Drift said. He looked over. “I’m sorry, Wing. Sorry you got dragged into this.”

            “It isn’t your fault.”

            “Yeah, it is. I knew he wouldn’t let me go.” Not after the fantastic mess Deadlock had left that cruiser in last time he’d been aboard, not after so publicly making a fool out of Turmoil. “He never forgets a grudge. I always knew the Decepticons wouldn’t just let me disappear. That’s why I left Crystal City. So you wouldn’t… so nobody would get mixed up in this. I shouldn’t have let you come along. Then you’d be safe back there.”

            “I would have followed,” Wing said. “I would have followed you, with or without your permission. I knew the dangers.”

            Drift stared at his determined face. Set and stubborn, like he was ready to debate the Circle’s tenets with Dai Atlas for weeks at a time. It was a face he’d seen in the mirror often enough.

            “Now,” Wing said, “I won’t let them take you from me without a fight.”

            That sounded like an idea Drift could get behind. “What’s the plan?”

            “I’m only a warrior,” Wing said. “Of the two of us, you’re the commander.”

            “They’ll get right up to us, probably swallow us in a shuttle bay,” Drift said, glancing out of the viewport. The great black bulk of Turmoil’s cruiser was growing steadily larger. “If we try using _Wayward Light_ ’s weapons, they’ll blast us into scrap, so that leaves it to us. They’ll engage a docking tube: a bottleneck. No matter how big the boarding party, they’ll be coming in twos and threes. We can take twos and threes, right?”

            “Easily,” Wing said, flashing his fangs in a grin.

            “You have any problems with killing Cybertronians?”

            “A knight is allowed to defend himself and those in his charge,” Wing said. “I regret it, and I will serve my penance when this is over. But I do not hesitate in combat, Drift.”

            “Just checking. Trained to consider all the variables.”

            “I understand. Go on.”

          “We station ourselves by the docking hatch. They come through that tunnel, they won’t know what hit them.”

            Wing smiled. His flickering EM field was the only sign of unease. They both knew two mechs couldn’t hold off an entire cruiser of trained soldiers. But no matter what it took… Drift would fight with all his strength to keep Wing out of Turmoil’s hands.

            “The Sword,” he said suddenly. Maybe this _was_ “extreme need,” but… “You should hide it.”

            Wing’s smile dropped instantly as his hand rose to touch the hilt, protective. “A knight—”

            “I know,” Drift said, as gently as he knew how. “But do you want to see it in Decepticon hands if… they could take it from you.”

            “Any who tried would be in for a shock,” Wing said, but he sounded uncertain.

            “We can’t give them any clue who you are,” Drift said. “Or where you’re from. If you knew Turmoil like I do…”

            “I can’t put the city in danger,” Wing said quietly, taking the Sword from his back. “I understand.”

            “I know a spot,” Drift said. Wing wiped the navigation logs before they ran to the hold, well aware that time was against them. Drift crouched by the wall next to the engine room and slid his fingers along an invisible seam, opening a hidden compartment. “We found these during the refits,” he said. “Invisible to scanners. We can thank Lockdown’s paranoia for that.”

            Wing’s face was smooth and unreadable as he tucked the Sword carefully into the compartment and shut it. Drift touched the middle of his back, where Peerless normally rested. “I’ll get you out of this, Wing. I swear.”

            _Don’t make promises you can’t keep_ , a little voice said in his head. Drift shook it off. Wing leaned over and pressed a lingering kiss to his mouthplates.

            “As long as I’m with you,” he said. If there was more to that thought, he kept it in silence. “We should go.”

            “One more surprise,” Drift said, searching through the stacked crates that counted as the armory. “Glad I convinced your friends to let me keep some of this stuff.”

            Wing looked in the crates. “Weapons?”

            “Catch.” Drift tossed something at him. “Hit it there, throw it as far as you can.”

            “I know what a grenade is, Drift.”

            “Just checking. You know, the whole ‘forbidden to use anything but swords’ thing. I think we won’t tell Dai Atlas about this.”

            “I agree.”

            A lurch ran through the ship as _Wayward Light_ was absorbed by _Vengeance_ ’s artificial gravity. Some part of Drift was excited, eager. He _lived_ for battle. It was the one thing he was really good at.

            _One thing you genuinely enjoy: killing people._

            “One advantage,” Drift said as they took up their places on either side of the docking hatch. “They’re trying not to kill us, or they wouldn’t have bothered to board.”

            “And you? Will _you_ have a problem killing them? They were your comrades once.”

            “They handed me over to Turmoil for execution,” Drift growled. “They’re no comrades of mine.”

            The ship rocked slightly—the docking tunnel sealing itself to their hull, Drift thought. _Give them a few kliks…_ he rested his fingers on the mechanism to open the hatch… _aaaand…_

            He compressed the pin on his grenade, hit the release on the hatch, and tossed the grenade clear down the docking tunnel to the first shocked ‘cons prowling towards them. The blast didn’t dislodge the sealed tunnel, but the first three mechs were caught full-on. Drift and Wing ducked away from a confusion of laser fire as the rest of the boarding party stumbled over the three bodies in their path.

            “Save yours for if we get overwhelmed,” Drift barked at Wing, and then the first group staggered out of the smoke and in range of their swords.

            Battle was better than any engex, any boosters: Drift found Deadlock’s old snarling laugh in his mouth when he downed his first enemy and scooped up the ‘con’s blaster— _he_ wasn’t forbidden from it. He took precision shots at joints, at faces, places where armor thinned. Next to him, in his periphery, blue light and white plating flashed as Wing attacked. Speed, power, grace: everything Drift wished he was.

            _He should have been one of us_ , Drift thought, sneaking a glance over. _With him at my side I could have beaten Turmoil… we could have destroyed the Autobots, we could have done anything._

            But there _were_ only two of them, and even as their end of the docking tunnel filled with mechs either groaning and injured or cold and offline, more Decepticons were still coming, and they were getting smarter: they found cover behind their offlined comrades, or crouched at the other end of the docking tunnel, taking careful shots at them. Not a Deadlock strategy but, in this case, one that was paying off. Both Drift and Wing were tiring, collecting injuries.

            That was when Drift saw the hulk of black armor at the end of the tunnel, the bright blue-white glow of a cannon charging. Too late to do anything about it but brace for impact and hope he didn’t die.

            It hit like—well, like a blast from a fusion cannon. There was a _reason_ everyone used that simile. For a moment Drift’s sensors whited out: light, heat, sound, pain, all overloaded at once. Visual came back first, grainy, but enough to see the ‘cons pressing down the tunnel in a charge, and the white arc of Wing’s arm as he threw the second grenade. It passed over the heads of the frontrunners and for a wild moment, laced with fire and confusion, Drift thought he’d simply missed. Then he saw the sudden bright, surprised gleam of a yellow visor, and realized Wing had been aiming for a different target entirely. The blast filled the other end of the docking tunnel with smoke.

            Audio and pain sensors rebooted at the same moment as Wing took a knee beside him, one hand hovering a few microns over the blackened plating of Drift’s side and the sparking stump of his right elbow.

            “— _ift!_ ”

            There was a ferocity in Wing’s face that he hadn’t seen there before, a vibrating tension all through his frame. Drift tried to speak, but his vocalizer was still fritzing. Darkness flashed across Wing’s face faster than shuttering an optic and he spun and rose in a spiral, swords flashing out at the first of the ‘cons who had reached them: the head flew one way, the body another.

            “ _Wing_ ,” Drift croaked, forcing sound from his rebooting vocalizer. Some deep terror bit at his Spark. It was _him_ Turmoil wanted alive, and if he decided Wing was too dangerous to let live—Drift couldn’t watch that again. He couldn’t go through that again. “Wing, _don’t_.”

           Decepticons surrounded them as Drift forced himself up on one arm. Wing’s attention darted one to the next, seeking openings, but his EM field gradually settled from jagged spikes to waves as the tension in his body eased. He straightened from his half-crouch. Finally he deactivated the blue glow of his swords and let them fall.

            By the time the Decepticons had hauled Drift to his feet, Wing’s energy field was tucked close to his plating and his face had flattened into its most neutral expression. Drift, on the other hand, growled at the mechs holding him, even as the inhibitor claw locked onto his back. Stasis cuffs for Wing, too, but not Drift—he wasn’t sure exactly where his wrist had gotten to, or the hand attached to it. He’d shut off the pain receptors from his shoulder down, but his side still ached from the grazing shot.

            He jerked closer to Wing as they were escorted down the docking tunnel. _I’ll get you out of this._ His own voice echoed in his head, over and over. _I’ll get you out of this, Wing. I swear._

            Then _Wayward Light_ was behind them, and _Vengeance_ had swallowed them in its shadows, her docking bay yawning wide around them, crowded with injured Decepticons who muttered and licked their wounds and glared at the two white mechs. And the darkest shadow loomed over them, his thick torso plating partially melted and pitted with debris from the grenade.

            “Welcome aboard, Deadlock,” Turmoil said. “Welcome home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments make my heart sing. Expect the next chapter soonish. ;)


	8. They Stumble Blindly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes suffer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot.
> 
> (Well, that was quick! I just couldn't put it down. Enjoy your Star Wars references and awful puns. Oh, and your new tags.)

            “It’s not ‘home’ and I’m not Deadlock,” Drift said, even though his voice had already sunk into Deadlock’s cadence. “It’s Drift.”

            “Drift, Deadlock. It doesn’t change what you are, traitor. You’ve led us a merry chase, but no more. There will be no clever escape this time.”

            Turmoil’s attention shifted. A hulk of a mech. Not as tall as Dai Atlas, but twice as broad, with an evil-looking cannon on his right arm. His combination of visor and faceplate rendered his emotions impossible to read. Cold blue biolights only deepened the shadows of his black armor. The pointed Decepticon badge glared from his chest.

            “And you’ve brought me a new toy. You caused quite a lot of damage, for a Neutral.” He touched his damaged chest, looking at the dead and injured mechs in the docking tunnel, then his attention returned. “So silent? You were willing enough to speak over the comm before, little diplomat. Where did Deadlock win such a prize?”

            “His name is Drift,” Wing said quietly.

            “You’ll get no sport from him. Don’t waste your energy,” Drift said, wrenching against his captors to place himself bodily before Wing. “It’s me you want.”

            “True,” Turmoil admitted.

            _Reveal your weakness to the enemy and the battle is over before it begins,_ Wing wanted to shout at Drift, just as his own teachers had drilled into him.

            “So let him go. He’s got nothing you want.”

            Turmoil laughed, a low, mirthless sound. “Don’t assume you know what I want. Oh, Deadlock, that was always your problem: You charge in with a frontal assault, force your way through, cause as much havoc as you please, and you call it a victory. If there’s one thing I tried to teach you, it’s that there are many ways for a mission to succeed. If your enemy expects a frontal assault—”

            His fist moved abruptly, swinging up towards Drift, who dodged sideways. The fist froze in the air with infinite control. “…find a new avenue of attack. Find the weak point in their defenses—”

            The hand snapped out, grabbing the top of Wing’s folded wings and dragging him forward and up onto his toeplates. Wing didn’t cry out, but Drift did, surging forward.

            “…and you get results,” Turmoil said, the faintest trace of smugness coloring his voice.

            He tilted his head, ignoring Drift’s furious snarl. Wing took the pain from his manhandled wing and tucked it away, ventilations calm and steady, as though meditating.

            “You aren’t afraid of me,” Turmoil said, leaning close as though he could dig the fear he sought up from the depths of Wing’s optics.

            “Should I be?” Wing asked.

            He thought Turmoil might be smiling.

            “Very.”

 

* * *

 

            The Decepticons took them to a dark, forbidding block of a room. It was not a promising sight. Two cells, separated by open space. One repair slab in the center of the room, but not one Wing would like to be repaired on. Stained with oil and energon and who knows what, scored by struggling claws. The back wall was a nightmare of blades, levers, wires, things for which Wing had no name, but knew their purpose: only pain.

            “Hold still, Deadlock,” one of the other mechs said, pushing Drift facedown over the repair slab. Darkness twisted through Wing’s Spark as Drift spat and kicked.

            _A knight is not led by his emotions_ , Dai Atlas scolded from his memory. _A knight does not act in vengeance. A knight does not attack in anger._

            The Decepticons held Drift down and cauterized the stump of his arm, sealing off the leaking energon lines. Wing repeated the Circle’s tenets again and again in silence. Turmoil was watching. He would be self-contained. He would not let his emotions lead him. He would not hand Turmoil a whip to use on his back.

            _Passion, yet serenity._

            The other mechs pushed Drift into one of the cells and slammed it shut as Drift lunged at the bars. Hands dragged Wing to the repair slab next.

            _Ignorance, yet knowledge._

            They pushed him down on his back, bodily pinning his limbs until the restraints activated. Drift was spitting curses in sixteen dialects.

            _Chaos, yet harmony._

            At a word from Turmoil, the rest of the mechs filed out, casting knife-sharp grins back at the prisoners. Wing quietly tested his restraints. There was no room to move his arms or legs.

            _Emotion, yet peace._

            “What do you want from me, Turmoil?” Drift asked. His vocals were bold, challenging, but his subvocs were ablaze with panic and desperation. Wing wanted to touch his cheek and soothe him. It would be better for them both if Drift could hide his emotions, but that wasn’t his way. He was open, passionate, and normally it did him credit. “You want me back? It’s not gonna happen.”

            “Why would I want you back?” Turmoil asked, checking the restraints. “I have plenty of killers, Deadlock.”

            “Drift,” Drift and Wing said in unison, one growling, one calm.

            “You want me dead, then? Kill me. Get it over with. You don’t need him.”

            “You’re no fun dead,” Turmoil said, choosing from a selection of serrated blades. Wing watched him lay out his tools. Tried not to guess their uses. _A knight does not fear pain._

            “Fun?” Drift spat, wrenching at the bars with his one hand. “Let me out and I’ll give you more fun than you can handle. Fraggit—get _away from him!_ ”

            Turmoil, to all appearances, ignored him. He picked up an innocent-looking stick. Not so innocent, Wing knew, and he drew in a long ventilation. It would be all right. He’d been through penances before. He had taken pain from those he loved and trusted, all to strengthen and prepare him.

            “You’re in good condition for a Neutral, little diplomat,” Turmoil said. “An interesting design.”

            He brushed the shockstick through a gap between Wing’s plating and charge crackled across his sensornet. Wing silenced the alerts in his HUD and let no sound escape. Drift punched the bars uselessly.

            _Passion, yet serenity._

            “Where did you come from? Where has Deadlock been hiding?”

            “His name is Drift,” Wing said, and his voice didn’t shake.

            The shockstick jabbed his shoulder joint. He shuttered his optics and vented air, releasing the heat from his overwhelmed systems.

            “Fraggit! Turmoil!”

            “Drift,” Wing said. “It’s all right.”

            Turmoil pressed the shockstick into his neck cables, under the jaw. This time Wing arched involuntarily, circuitry crackling. Light—so much light inside of him, searing, cleansing. He clung to it gladly.

            _Ignorance, yet knowledge._

            Turmoil leaned over him, perplexed.

            “A puzzle,” he said. “Why so silent, little one? Won’t you sing for me?”

            _This is nothing_ , Wing would have said, would have laughed in his face, even as the shockstick danced across his sensors. _Compared to the slaver’s lance in my Spark?_

            But he caught that thought and pushed it deep. _Don’t think of that. Chaos, yet harmony, emotion, yet peace…_

            “Get your _filthy hands off him,_ Turmoil!” Drift bellowed. Turmoil lifted the shockstick and Wing’s overtaxed cables relaxed, letting him fall back to the repair slab. Wisps of smoke rose from between his plating. Turmoil set the shockstick aside.

            “Deadlock,” he said, and ignored Drift’s growl and Wing’s whisper of “Drift.” “Why should I stop?”

            “Because I’m the one you want to hurt!”

            Turmoil gave his mirthless laugh again. “But this _is_ hurting you.”

            “You’re a worthless coward,” Drift spat. “Gear-grinding piston-licking… Afraid to take me out of here? Afraid I can take it? Just like you, Turmoil. No fair fight. No honor.”

            “Honor,” Turmoil said coldly. “Honor doesn’t win wars.”

            “Neither does cowardice! I’ll take you on, Turmoil, you and me! Or are you scared? That was always _your_ problem! Too scared to test our strength! You were always holding me back!”

            A transparent ruse, a well-meaning but ill-considered effort to make Turmoil angry and divert his attention. Wing wished he wouldn’t, and at the same time, was shamefully grateful. And it seemed effective. Turmoil turned to face Drift, stepping towards the cell.

            “You know, Megatron wanted me back,” Drift flung at him. “Sent Lockdown for me and everything. _He_ knows how to fight a war. You? You’re a disgrace to the Decepticons.”

            “You dare!” For the first time, Turmoil sounded furious as he lunged, seizing Drift by the throat through the bars. “You _dare_ speak of disgracing our cause?! You, who abandoned us? You, who threw away your badge, a piece of your own Spark chamber?! You who now wear Autobot optics?”

            He yanked Drift up against the bars until Drift’s feet kicked and dangled in the air.

            “They don’t suit you, Deadlock,” Turmoil said, raising his other hand, and Wing found he couldn’t bear the sight of what he suddenly realized must happen next. He shut off his optics and turned his head away just in time to hear Drift scream.

            _Chaos yet harmony, passion yet serenity, ignorance yet knowledge, emotion yet peace, death…_

            He swallowed the bolt of fear that shot through him, buried it deep. Not for Turmoil’s eyes.

            Turmoil tapped him none-too-gently on the audial fin and Wing onlined his optics. Turmoil stood between him and Drift, blocking his view… probably for the best. Drift wasn’t cursing any more, but Wing could hear his gasps of pain.

            “You,” Turmoil said, leaning close. “You still don’t fear me.”

            Wing didn’t answer.

            “Then, little diplomat, let us find out together what you fear.”

 

* * *

 

            Six hundred repetitions of four of the core tenets, twenty recitations of his vows, and twelve complete readings of Dai Atlas’s laws for New Crystal City later, Wing stopped screaming.

            “Enjoying the show, Deadlock?” Turmoil chuckled darkly, with an edge of frustration. Because for all the pain, he hadn’t really struck the _core_ of Wing, hadn’t found what he wanted. Wing could almost treat this as a penance, if one more severe than anything Dai Atlas would permit— _the pain in your body is nothing; it will pass in time, and you will be stronger for it_ —if it weren’t for Drift, hearing him; Drift, suffering, his audio sensors amplified automatically to make up for the lack of visual feedback. “So to speak.”

            “Frag. You. Turmoil.” Drift’s raw voice croaked one word at a time between his dentae. He had run out of curses before Wing had run out of screams.

            “His name,” Wing whispered, “is Drift.”

            “Is that what he told you?” Turmoil asked, gripping his chin, and Wing had no energy to pull away. “Did you think he was a victim? Some poor lost soul?”

            “Turmoil, I swear,” Drift gritted out.

            “Deadlock is a killer,” Turmoil said, close enough that his voice vibrated across Wing’s EM field. “Ruthless. Unflinching. It’s what he was made for.”

            “You’re wrong,” Wing said quietly.

            “Am I. I suppose show is better than tell.”

           Wing’s vocalizer spat sparks as Turmoil pried up a panel on his forearm, tossing it aside with a pathetic clatter. A heavy thumb scraped across his hardline ports, sending an unpleasant tingle up his arm on top of the sharp tearing pain. Even as he fruitlessly tried to wrench his arm from the restraints, away from Turmoil’s probing touch, Wing ran a fast test of the firewalls protecting his most precious secrets: the existence of New Crystal City, its navigation coordinates, his old self, his knowledge of the Great Swords. They had been written and implemented in Crystal City. He doubted—no, he _knew_ that Turmoil would not break through those barriers, not through a mere hardline link.

            “You will learn nothing from me,” he said, a last-ditch effort.

            “But you might learn something from me,” Turmoil said, hooking up his hardline cable. And then he was there, a great shadowy presence at the edge of Wing’s awareness, able to touch but not to be touched over the one-way connection. Wing was prepared to defend his mind, but Turmoil did not seem interested in taking data, but in sending it, like a barrage. And the wave hit.

            _Deadlock, not the injured, feral fugitive Wing had met, but hale and healthy, in battle. Laughing._

            _A knight puts others first_. Wing arched, deaf to Drift’s renewed fury.

            _Deadlock, guns in hand, leading a charge, his grinning face splashed with someone else’s energon as he lands on top of a fleeing Autobot and fires downward, one shot through the brain module._

            The hardline connection burned like a net of hot wires dragging its way across his processor. Wing’s lips moved: _a knight finishes what he begins_.

            _Deadlock, planning, arguing over the route to take, red optics blazing, fangs flashing in a snarl as he accuses Turmoil of being too slow, too cautious, too timid, too weak._

            Wing’s optics stared unseeingly up at Turmoil’s cold visor. _A knight controls his desires_. It hurt. It hurt more terribly than anything else Turmoil had done to him.

            _Deadlock, in Turmoil’s berth, snarling and never satisfied._

           _Peerless,_ Wing almost cried, wanted its weight between his shoulders, needed the reassurance of who he was, because he had started to forget. _A knight does not relinquish his Sword._

            _Deadlock, razing worlds; Deadlock, proud of it, reveling in it._

            It went on and on, a thousand little memories of this stranger, the monster Dai Atlas had warned him about, the war they’d fled. Wing only knew the hardline connection had stopped when he became aware of his own high keening, his tense cables, his shivering plating. He fell limp, fans roaring. He had no energy, no thought of moving, even as Turmoil opened the restraints, pulling him bodily upright. He barely noticed when he hit the ground and Turmoil locked the cage behind him.

            “Rest, little diplomat. Tomorrow we find out what you fear. Deadlock… keep an eye on him.”

            Wing barely heard the colorful array of suggestions the other mech shouted after Turmoil until a beep announced that the door had sealed itself. Finally he purged his tanks, shaking and shuddering. Every part of him hurt. When he had no more in his tanks to reject, he dragged himself to the bars, leaning on them for support. The mech across the way reached his remaining arm through the bars, but his hand grasped only air.

            “Wing,” he said. “Wing.”

            “Deadlock,” Wing said in a voice that grated; each syllable tasted like failure. The other mech jerked as though struck.

            “Drift,” he said. “Drift. Please, Wing. That…” His words caught and twisted in on themselves, forcing him to stop and untangle them. “That… that _was_ me. Wing. I can’t deny that, and I can’t change it. But _I_ changed. You taught me that, Wing, remember? You saw more in me. You showed me another way.”

            Wing drew his knees up to his chest.

            “Wing… Wing, look at me. Please. I need…” His voice broke. “I need… look at me.”

            Even through the lingering pain, Wing could hear the words left unspoken. What he really needed.

            _Forgive me._

            “Please, Wing. Look at me.”

            With the last dregs of his strength, Wing stretched an arm through the bars, as far as he could, but his fingers were just microns from the outstretched hand. Past that—the face, the sockets of his eyes dark and staring, a line of dark fluid traced down his cheek. Deadlock’s features, maybe, but somehow infinitely different than the snarling, laughing face in the foreign memories sinking their hooks into his mind.

            “I am looking, Drift.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I love and giggle over and diligently reply to all of your comments. Thank you so much!)


	9. The Dying Of The Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes find their breaking point.

            Turmoil returned after precisely eight hours. An intimidation tactic, Wing suspected, or the beginning of one. If he established a routine, they would come to anticipate, or dread, his arrival, counting down the kliks.

            “I have to hand it to you, Deadlock. You look better than I expected.”

            “Ooh,” Drift said. “Take you all night to come up with those?”

            Turmoil didn’t answer. Instead he crossed to Wing’s cage.

            “So is it my turn today, or are the bad puns torture enough?” Drift asked.

            “Neither,” Turmoil said, opening the door. “Your quiet friend is more interesting.”

            Wing bit back his cries as Turmoil hauled him to the repair slab. Movement aggravated his injuries from yesterday’s torture. He let out a strangled yelp when Turmoil slammed him ungently onto the slab and secured the restraints.

            “I’ve spent some time looking over the footage of your stand in the docking tunnel,” Turmoil said, conversationally. “You intrigue me more and more, little one. Tell me your story.”

            “I have no story,” Wing said, the same reply he’d given Drift.

            “I know you’re strong,” Turmoil said. “Stronger than Deadlock.”

            He hooked his fingers around a plate on Wing’s arm and casually pried it up. Wing keened, but swallowed the noise. He’d expected something more refined, like the day before.

            “I don’t need my tools,” Turmoil said as though reading his mind. “Not today. You’re so small, my little warrior-diplomat. You weren’t built for endurance. My hands are all I need this time.”

            He twisted one of Wing’s shoulder fins. _A knight doesn’t fear pain._ Over the shriek of metal, Wing heard Drift shouting threats.

            “You’re getting predictable, Deadlock,” Turmoil said. “You lack… vision.”

            _Ignorance, yet knowledge. Emotion, yet peace._

            Turmoil tapped Wing’s helm crest for his attention. “You can end this, little warrior. You don’t need to suffer. I watched your battle. I was impressed.”

            “That,” Wing rasped, “doesn’t sound too difficult.”

            “Deadlock is rubbing off on you,” Turmoil said. “One of him is enough. But you. You are a warrior, and a flier—” He gave the trapped fin a pinch. “—and you could be useful. What do you say? The Decepticons would value your skills. Join us, and help us fight for the future of Cybertron.”

            “Boy are _you_ talking to the wrong mech,” Drift said.

            “I wasn’t talking to _you_ , in any case,” Turmoil said. “Should I take your vocalizer as well as your eyes?”

            Wing spoke up before Drift could earn himself any more pain. “I wouldn’t join you, even if I believed this war would save Cybertron’s future.”

            “Disappointing, if not surprising,” Turmoil said. “You may wish you had accepted the offer. When I watched our footage, I also kept track of the injuries you gave my soldiers. _All_ of them. I plan to revisit them on you: every last one. There are two ways this ends, little one: you will tell me who you are and where you come from, where a Neutral can become so accomplished in battle. You will plead for mercy and forgiveness, and I _may_ decide to grant it to you. You will wear our badge and fight at my side. That is option one. Option two is this: I will find what you fear, and I will break you with it. If you still entertain me, I may let you live, if only to watch Deadlock suffering for your pain.”

            “I will not betray my vows.”

            Wing cried out as Turmoil applied pressure to his already twisted fin.

            “Then let us find out what you fear.”

 

* * *

 

            In the part of Wing’s mind that remained distant, he could almost appreciate Turmoil’s impressive memory for exacting detail—Wing did not deceive himself—not out of caring for his soldiers, but for love of Wing’s pain. Never life-threatening damage, always bare-handed. And not all at once. Turmoil came to them, stayed until Wing was practically delirious with the pain of it. He left, exactly eight hours passed, and he returned to begin again where he’d left off, reopening wounds that Wing’s self-repair had only begun to mend.

            “Is it enough, little one?” Turmoil asked, each time, when even Drift’s cursing had died out. “Tell me your story, and the pain will stop.”

            Wing believed him.

            “I have no story,” he said each time.

            It was a battle, one that Drift had lost in the opening move, but that Wing was still somehow winning, even if his only reward was Turmoil’s mounting frustration and continued pain. He must run out of wounds soon.

            “Tell me your story,” Turmoil said again, snarling now.

            “I have no story,” Wing said, his voice popping with static. His vocalizer had been damaged earlier in this session, his throat cables stripped. _A knight does not submit to pain._

            “You thought I had forgotten,” Turmoil said. His huge hands traced the triangular panels of Wing’s chest. “My soldiers’ injuries have been avenged. But I never forget a wound of my own.”

            Wing’s ventilations grew unsteady as black fingers pried into his chestplates. The steady mantra of the Circle’s tenets stuttered in his mind. Emotion yet… emotion yet… _emotion yet peace…_

            “Turmoil!” Drift shouted, hoarse, distorted. “What are you doing to him? Turmoil!”

            Pain lanced through him, searing heat, burning cold, and Wing screamed as Turmoil peeled him open. Tearing with his bare hands, as though the strongest plating on Wing’s fragile flier’s form was nothing. The mantra scattered, all comforting memories of home dashed to pieces. Only one moment, like a bad memory purge: green reptilian scales, a yellow grin, a blaze of white light. A spear—

            “A warrior should be able to take what he gives out! If you are to be one of my Decepticons, I’ll need your Spark casing eventually.”

            _No_ danced at the tip of Wing’s glossa, a sob that became a shriek as Turmoil’s hand reached into his chest.

            “Take it like a Decepticon,” Turmoil said, but his words made no sense over the shattering—Deadlock’s voice called a name—his name—not Deadlock— _Drift_ —the shattering of his Spark casing—when Deadlock (no, Drift, no, Deadlock) had lain injured on Redline’s table, microns from death, Redline had said—the Spark casing, difficult to break, but razor sharp in fragments—his Spark—it hurt, it hurt more than almost any pain Wing had endured. But one.

            _Emotion yet peace chaos yet chaos yet, chaos… I don’t want to die—!_

            “Please!”

            The cry made Turmoil pause. A long moment. A slow, delighted voice. “What was that?”

            Metal groaned and Wing’s cables all pulled taut at once. Everything was white—the spear plunged through his chest—Turmoil’s hand…

            “Please,” he gasped, ventilations sobbing. “Please, no.”

            _Death yet life. Death yet life._

            “Oh, little one.” Turmoil sounded like he’d been given the most lovely present of his life. “Is this the great secret? All along, have I been staring at it? Do you fear death, little one?”

            Wing twisted and arched, a grating scream tearing from him as Turmoil’s fingers closed around his Spark.

            “So simple. So easy I overlooked it. You trust in your strength: armies, you can fight. Pain, you can endure. But this?” Turmoil leaned close, though Wing was past seeing. “Oblivion,” he hissed. “ _That_ is what you fear. Aren’t we fragile, in the end? Such a little light, isn’t it?”

            Wing’s Spark fluttered, flickered, and Wing’s lips moved. _Death yet life. Death yet life. Death yet life death yet…_

            “Your life in my hand,” Turmoil said, microns away from his face. “And all I have to do is squeeze.”

            _I don’t want to die I don’t want to die I don’t want to—_

            “Turmoil!” _Deadlo—_ Drift. “Don’t do this. Don’t do this.”

            He could end it. Even now he could stop it, he could tell him about the Circle, about the City, he could—

            “You value his life more than you value your kind.” Turmoil. “Why shouldn’t I end it?”

            _A knight_ —the voice in his head was so faint—he wanted Peerless, needed— _please let me live—a knight puts others before himself._

            “Little one,” Turmoil said, and the terrible grip on his Spark eased. “You entertain me still. I will not kill you… today.”

            He withdrew his hand, careful not to scrape his armor on the razor-sharp edges of the shattered Spark casing. Wing let out a broken sob as Turmoil undid the restraints and lifted him by the hole in his chest, hauling him to the cage. He hit the floor and the world broke into scattered light. He curled in on himself protectively, his body moving outside his control to shield his vulnerable core. If Turmoil or Drift had anything else to say, Wing couldn’t hear it beyond the high whine of feedback in his audios.

            Home. His processor fed him images: the Circle’s council chamber, wide and airy and bright; Axe’s wicked grin the last time he’d dumped Wing on his aft; Redline’s firm hands; Dai Atlas’s lectures, even. Standing among the knights to fight with Drift. And then he saw them frowning, turning away from him, fading even as he reached for them.

            And Peerless, he wanted Peerless’s weight on his back, its warmth in his Spark. The happiest day of his life, the day it chose him and he became a knight—now, try as he might, he couldn’t feel its presence in his Spark, only the coldness of Turmoil’s touch. Would it choose him now, would the knights accept him, laid open to expose the weakness at his core?

            Unwanted. Unworthy.

            “Wing?” Deadlock. _Drift_. But he sounded so small. “Are you there?”

            “I’m here,” he tried to say, but his vocalizer barely managed a whisper. He forced himself to speak louder. “I’m here.”

            He couldn’t bring himself to move. It still hurt, his Spark still shone clear out of his chest, reflecting in the pool of energon he couldn’t even drag himself out of.

            “Are you…” Drift cut off the question, because nothing about this was _all right_. “Will you be all right?”

            “I’m alive,” Wing whispered. Because yes. He was alive. But it wasn’t _all right_ , and just then, he doubted it ever would be again. For once, he couldn’t see the light or goodness in anything.

            “I wish…” Drift hesitated. His voice cracked. “I wish you had the Sword.”

            _Pain._ More than Wing could stand. It clawed its way up from his chest and burst out in a cry. “I don’t think I deserve it.”

            His vents shuddered in an abrupt storm of sobs. He felt shattered, like his Spark casing, broken into a million pieces, and he couldn’t stop. “I wanted to tell you,” he choked out, “but I… I couldn’t…”

            It was hard to force out the words. He should have told Drift this so long ago, on their ship. They’d had the time, and it had been eating away at him for too long, like a virus.

            “When he,” he choked on the words again, “when the slaver, when he…” He could barely speak through the memory, now that his Spark was exposed, his chamber in agony, his chest peeled open. “I was afraid. I was afraid to die. And Turmoil. I—afraid. I was afraid to die.”

            “Everyone’s afraid to die.”

            _He doesn’t understand_. “Not the knights,” he insisted. “A knight should face death. A knight doesn’t fear it. A knight should lay down his life for…”

            “Everyone’s afraid to die,” Drift said again. “It doesn’t make you weak. It means you value life. Your own life, and that’s all right. Your life is worth it. More than mine.”

            Wing mustered every last bit of his strength, enough to slowly, painfully slowly, drag himself to the bars. He could see Drift, on the ground, leaning against his own bars.

            “It’s all right to be scared. I don’t care what Dai Atlas says.”

            _A knight_ , that quiet voice in Wing’s mind whispered, _does not give up. Not when someone needs him._

            “Wing, you offered up your life for those people in the City. You would have gone out there alone. That’s more than I would have done. A lot more than I would have done.”

            Wing rested against the bars. Fortunate that they were solid, not energy. A spark lit the darkness in his mind. Solid metal…

            “You still with me?” Drift asked. His hand reached blindly through, as though for comfort. The dark pits where his optics should have been sent a twist of pity through Wing’s Spark. Drift should not be helpless, blinded, caged.

            _Are you a knight or aren’t you?_ the voice said. _A knight doesn’t sit contemplating his own weakness when there’s a life to save._

            “Always,” Wing whispered. “Drift, we’re getting out of here.”

            “How?”

            Wing’s hand dipped into the gap in his chest, flirting with the jagged fragments of his Spark casing. “With the knife Turmoil just gave me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your comments!


	10. From The Deepest Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a knight uses every resource at his disposal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear lord, I wrote an escort mission.

            “What do you mean? What knife? Turmoil’s not _that_ sloppy.”

            Wing shuttered his optics, getting a good grip. “Drift. This is… this is _really_ going to hurt. So if I scream, don’t worry.”

            “What are you _doing?!_ ”

            Wing yanked. For a moment the world dissolved into static and frantic warnings from his processor. Everything gradually came back into focus, as did Drift’s voice.

            “Wing! What happened? Talk to me! Fraggit, _Wing_!”

            “I’m here,” Wing gasped, discovering himself curled into a protective ball. The pain pulled a giddy laugh from him. “I was right about it hurting.”

            “Did Turmoil burn out your processor or something, because I don’t see anything to laugh about!”

            Wing laughed again. “I don’t think you ‘see’ much of anything at the moment, Drift.”

            Drift groaned. “I knew it. You’ve cracked.”

            “No,” Wing said. “I promise. But when the Unmaker laughs, laugh with him.”

            “Offhand,” Drift said, tapping the bars with the stump of his elbow, “that’s the worst tidbit of Circle wisdom I’ve ever heard.”

            “ _That_ was terrible.” By now Wing had recovered enough to move. He eased out of his ball and looked down at what he held in his hand: a jagged wedge of his Spark casing, as long as his forearm stabilizer and much sharper.

            “Now will you tell me what’s going on?”

            “The Spark casing is… _nn_ … difficult to break, but once you do, the pieces are sharper than any sword.”

            Drift was silent for a long moment while Wing pulled himself to his feet. He pushed the pain aside, locked it away. There was a sort of bittersweet freedom in being broken. He had lost his dignity and his self to Turmoil: he had nothing else to lose, nothing but Drift, and Wing would die a hundred times over before he would let Drift be taken from him.

            “This is why we don’t let you make the plans,” Drift said finally, and for the first time in days, humor crept into his subvocs as he imitated Wing’s harmonics. “Dai Atlas, is it okay if I bring a Decepticon to our hidden city? Oh, I’ll go face the slavers alone. Just a minute, let me pry out part of my Spark casing to use as a knife. Can I do anything else for you?”

            “I could give you one of my optics,” Wing suggested as he drove his makeshift knife into the locking mechanism.

            “Don’t you fragging dare,” Drift said.

            “To be fair, that first one has turned out all right so far.”

            “It’s gotten you in trouble with Dai Atlas…”

            _You have no idea_ , Wing thought, but didn’t say. He hadn’t told Drift about the tribunal yet and had never intended to, but… he’d regretted not telling Drift about his fears before. Maybe he _should_ tell him.

            “…it got you almost killed by the slavers, and then it took you from your home, dragged you halfway across the galaxy, and got you into this mess.”

            Wing pushed his cage door open and limped across to Drift’s, starting in on the lock. “My fault, not yours. I still say it was the right decision.”

            “After all that?”

            “What would _you_ have done in my place? Left you to die?”

            “Yes,” Drift admitted. “Probably would have.”

            “I couldn’t.”

            “Even if it meant keeping me as a prisoner?”

            “If it meant saving your life. And mine.”

            “Yours.”

            Wing rested, for a moment, against the bars. “Drift… what do you think it was like before you came? What do you think I did all day? I trained to protect the weak and helpless, but I could never _go_ to them. I was a flier living underground, a warrior in a city of peace. A city that had everything I could possibly want except…”

            “Freedom,” Drift said.

            Wing opened the cell door and crouched behind Drift, unhooking the inhibitor claw. “Can you stand?”

            “Better than you can,” Drift said, using the bars to pull himself up. “Just can’t see. Some jailbreak this is going to be: one of us can’t see and one of us can’t move.”

            “I can move,” Wing protested. “Can you get my inhibitor claw?”

            “I don’t know,” Drift said, feeling around the edges with his one remaining hand. “Seems like it’s the only thing holding you together right now.”

            His arms slipped entirely around Wing and tugged him close. Even as Wing gasped in pain, he clung tightly back, his face tucked into Drift’s neck cables.

            “I thought he’d kill you,” Drift breathed.

            “He still might,” Wing said. “We have to go.” But he didn’t want to be the first to break the embrace. Drift’s hand brushed the ragged edges of the tear in his chest, carefully exploring, assessing the damage.

            “Wing. Oh, _Wing_.”

            “It can be repaired,” Wing said. “Again.”

            Drift tucked their foreheads together. “I hoped I’d never see you like that again.”

            “Well,” Wing said, with something that might have been a valiant attempt at a laugh strangled in his vocalizer, “it’s a good thing you don’t have to.”

            Drift clumsily unhooked the inhibitor claw. Even with those gone, they were both far too injured to transform. Wing took the moment to kiss him softly.

            “Whatever happens,” he murmured against Drift’s lips, “we face it together.”

            He touched the armor on Drift’s intact forearm, over the hardline ports. “I need to know the layout of the ship.”

            Drift bared the hardline equipment, but hesitated for a moment, his fingers running over Wing’s forcibly exposed ports. “Is this all right?”

            “It’s fine, Drift.” And still an unpleasant shudder ran through him when Drift linked to him. It was ridiculous—he’d linked plenty of times before, with Redline, with Axe, with friends. Innocuous data or happy memories. He would not allow Turmoil to overshadow all of that.

            He still jerked away with a relieved shiver when Drift disconnected. Drift stumbled, his hand reaching halfheartedly towards the last place Wing had been.

            “Sorry,” Wing said, stepping back into his reach as he accessed the new data. Drift had already plotted the best course to the hangar where they had come aboard.

            “Can you fight?” Drift asked.

            “I have to.”

            “Can you get me a weapon? I can still read signatures on radar. Just can’t see them.”

            Wing limped over to the back wall and took down one of the blades. If he looked closely, he could see traces of his own energon trapped in the serrated edge. He pressed it into Drift’s hand. “Try not to stab me.”

            “I’ll do my best. Try not to collapse on me.”

            “A fine pair we make,” Wing said.

            “Bring on Turmoil,” Drift said.

            Wing led the way, one step at a time. _A knight does not give in to pain. A knight protects those in his charge, no matter what._

            “High-traffic corridor coming up,” Drift hissed. “Careful.”

            “Stay here,” Wing said.

            “Frag no. Together, remember?”

            Wing concentrated, for a moment, on the warm touch of Drift’s hand on his back, keeping them always in contact.

            “Together,” he agreed. “Stay close.”

            They made it surprisingly far: almost halfway before coming face-to-face with three Decepticons. Wing leapt into action—as best he could—trying to stop them before they ran for help. The first he took by surprise, driving his casing fragment through an optic into the brain module. The second pulled a blaster, but Wing kicked his arm aside and the shot went wild, scoring the ceiling. Wing let out a cry, half pain, half aggression as he angled his blade between layers of chest armor, driving for the Spark. The third mech folded into altmode as Drift made a wild lunge towards him, his blade missing by a surprisingly small margin.

            “He’ll warn Turmoil,” Drift snarled as the Decepticon fled. “Come on. Can you run?”

            “We’ll find out,” Wing said. Drift seized his hand in a grip made clumsy by his stolen knife.

            “Come on, then!”

            Even blinded, Drift navigated the ship with a combination of his mental layout and long experience, making all the correct turns with slight tugs from Wing to adjust for corners. Wing staggered behind him, ventilations coming in harsh rasps as he fielded warnings from all his systems.

            At the next corner, Wing hauled back to stop Drift from sprinting headlong into a blast door. “Blocked!”

            “I’ll find us another route.”

            “Too late,” Wing said, falling into a combat crouch as multiple targets appeared on his scanners. “Can you still hook up to their systems?”

            “Passcodes will be changed, but I’ll try a workaround,” Drift said, connecting to the door console by hardline.

            “I’ll hold them,” Wing promised.

            It was probably wrong for a knight to think so, but he really, _really_ wanted one of those grenades right now. Wing launched himself at the first wave, wielding both the fragment of his Spark casing and Drift’s stolen knife. It was so different from the battle with the slavers. There he’d had his own swords singing in his hands, his family at his back. Here, he stood alone, shunting emergency alerts into a junk folder. And protecting Drift—Drift, who could not defend himself, could not even see the shots coming to dodge.

            In short, it was impossible, and he knew it.

            “ _Hurry_ , Drift!” he cried, crushing his heel onto fragile throat components as he drove both blades up under another ‘con’s chin. He turned his body to take the shots meant for Drift on his least injured plating, then went for the shooter.

            _Peerless!_ Now, if ever, he wanted the Great Sword in his hands.

            “Now!” Drift snapped. “Come here!”

            Wing spun towards drift and saw the blast door opening. It opened fully, and instantly began to shut again. He seized Drift bodily around the waist and flung them both through, slashing out with the blade in his left hand to take the optics of the mech waiting on the other side.

            “Here,” he said, scooping up the ‘con’s blaster—clumsy, heavy, abhorrent in his grasp—and pressing it into Drift’s hand. “Thirty degrees, two marks.”

            Drift fired at the mechs running down the corridor. Wing’s knees went weak and he staggered against the wall. Drift cast about, unaccustomed fear crossing his face.

            “Wing? Where are you?!”

            “Here,” Wing gasped. _A knight doesn’t give up._ He silenced yet another alarm and flung himself at a mech rounding the corner.

          “Keep going,” Drift urged. “You can make it. Come on, Wing, where’s all that Circle power and superiority?”

            Wing managed a grating, ugly laugh, and forced himself into a run.

            “We can make it,” Drift said. “You and me, Wing, come on.”

            The shard had cut deep into Wing’s palm and fingers, but he gripped it all the tighter, terrified to drop it. That pain was so… trivial, compared to the rest. He focused on that. Shut out the rest, as he sliced the throat cables of another mech. Not strictly fatal, but it would take him from the fight.

            “Almost.” Drift’s voice cut through his daze. “Almost there, Wing.”

            This time they both hit the door. Wing shook his head, trying to clear it. He… he hadn’t even seen it. Drift groped for the console and linked in.

            “Almost there, Wing. Almost. Just a little—”

            Wing didn’t hear the rest. There were threats to fight. Duck. Spin. Slash. _Drift_. _Keep Drift safe._

            “I’m impressed,” a familiar voice said over the sounds of the fight. A gap opened in the soldiers, only masses of color to Wing’s darkening optics. One massive, black shadow. “Using your own Spark casing as a weapon. You think like a Decepticon.”

            Wing had no patience for villainous monologuing. He overrode all the emergency shutdowns, flared his wings, and fired up his turbines, flinging himself at Turmoil. The massive tank was unprepared for his sudden attack. Wing drove his fragment into Turmoil’s neck.

            “Wanted… this…?” he managed, static-laden syllables popping from his vocalizer. Wanted to kill him. Ready to…!

            Blaster fire. Drift. _Drift_. More important. Protect Drift.

            He launched off of Turmoil and threw himself as a shield over Drift, taking the shots on his back—his wings.

            An idea.

            “Drift!” His voice cracked. _One more word, please!_ “Gravity.”

            A tingle ran through his entire frame as Drift hacked the ship’s artificial gravity. The grounders panicked as they floated from the ground, spinning uncontrollably the more they thrashed. Turmoil tried to bark orders, but his vocalizer had been destroyed by Wing’s attack. The hangar door opened. _Wayward Light_ was there, beckoning.

            _Peerless!_

Wing wrapped his arms around Drift and flew, navigating the zero-g effortlessly. Drift’s hand found the hatch console. _Wayward Light_ , too, was zero-gravity without the engines running. Wing spiraled up the ramp to the upper deck and they bounced off the ceiling of the cockpit.

            “Wing. Wing!” Drift had to call several times before Wing heard. “I locked down the _Vengeance_. They can’t stop us. We have a head start. Who said you can’t use the same trick twice? Wing?”

            “Go,” Wing rasped, guiding Drift’s hand to the pilot’s console. He wouldn’t need optics for this. “Go. Need… go.”

            His battered wings carried him down again, and as Drift started the engines, the artificial gravity pulled him to the floor of the hold. Wing dragged himself to the hidden compartment, dropped his blades, fumbled at the seams, but it opened even to his shaking, energon-coated hands.

            “ _Peerless_ ,” he sang in the Primal Vernacular. “ _Peerless_.”

            It sang back, warm to his touch, its gem brightening. He wasn’t thinking of how he had broken for Turmoil, his fears, only that he needed Peerless in his hands to defend Drift. The Sword reached into his Spark, wrapped him in its warmth, and he found himself sobbing, hugging it close to his shattered chest. Accepted. Forgiven.

           Hands pulled him close to another warmth. A voice he knew. Drift’s. “Wing. Wing, it’s over now, we’re safe. We’re safe in FTL. Wing, you’ve got to listen, we made it. You and me. Stay with me, Wing. You can do it. You were so brave. Hold on a little longer, Wing. So brave. Stay with me.”

            Drift’s voice and the alarms in his processor and the Sword’s song… and the light, the Sword’s light, holding him close… that would be all Wing knew for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always love your comments!


	11. Blinking In The Starlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes recover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These boys deserve a little schmoop.

            It turned out that being blind and virtually alone in a ship gave one plenty of time to think.

            For one thing, about the pain. Plenty of it. Turmoil hadn’t been particularly gentle when he gouged out Drift’s eyes. So that was a constant, steady agony. His arm had been cauterized, but that did nothing about the ache that persisted even after he hacked his sensors. There were other miscellaneous wounds, either from the battle in the docking tube, or blaster fire from the escape. Less of that than he’d expected, and he knew why: Wing had protected him.

            That was the other thing to think about.

            Wing was in stasis. Drift couldn’t _see_ the full extent of his injuries, but he could explore with his hands. He’d found the places Turmoil had cut him, pulled off his armor. Scars and pits and ragged tears and worst of all… that gaping hole in his chest. _Again_.

            Each time his fingers found a new wound he could hear Wing’s screams again. He could feel the bars against his shoulders and chest as he slammed himself into them, as though force of will alone could alter physics and allow him to pass through. Reaching with all his might, as though wishing hard enough would allow him to touch Wing. Blind, powerless, unable to even see what Turmoil was doing to him… only to guess. And all the while Turmoil had taunted him with his own helplessness.

            _If you really cared about him, Deadlock, you’d know how to help him. Oh, my little one, you_ are _fragile, aren’t you? I hope you’re learning something valuable today, Deadlock._

            This felt like one more of Turmoil’s cruel games: he could touch Wing now, but had no idea how to help him. He had a mental inventory of the medbay, but Turmoil’s mechs had plundered their supplies, leaving barely anything behind. Some energon, some basic medical and engineering tools, two crates of weapons. Another day or so and they’d have taken everything. There was enough to jury-rig an energon drip to keep Wing’s self-repair running. That would help some of the damage. But with his Spark casing breached…?

            He should have died. He should have died, and Drift would have been powerless to stop it. But as the cycles passed and Wing’s frame still hummed under his hands, Drift realized… it was the Sword. It _had_ to be. There was no other explanation. The Sword was acting as life support, keeping Wing’s Spark pulsing. It couldn’t heal him, no more than Wing’s under-fueled self-repair, but it would hold him steady until they found help.

            And Drift knew where to find it. He’d linked to _Wayward Light_ ’s navigation systems to find out where they were, and then he wracked his memory banks for the nearest friendly territory. Anyplace that welcomed their kind. The nearest safe haven was a Neutral colony protected under the Tyrest Accord. Drift set the course and returned to Wing’s side, where he could monitor his condition.

            But it was a long way, and he had, again, plenty of time to think.

            Turmoil. What Drift wouldn’t give to sink a sword into his old commander’s Spark. The one who’d driven him away from the Decepticons… from the war.

            Drift traced his fingers over Wing’s audial fins. If he hadn’t left, he never would have met Wing. He might never have seen the Decepticons from the outside, seen the path Megatron was leading them down. But…

            The war. It followed them, and Drift found it harder and harder to turn away each time. This war was killing their species; it had already killed their planet. It had to end. He and Wing had argued in circles in Crystal City: Wing for diplomacy and a peaceful resolution; Drift for a decisive victory, one side or another. They didn’t look so different to him now. Decepticons, Autobots, the lines between them had begun to blur.

            A moot point. To the Decepticons, he was a traitor. On the List, probably. When he returned to the war… _if_ he returned… he couldn’t be a Decepticon. But… an Autobot? He couldn’t see it. They were the defenders of the old ways, the corrupt system that had ground Drift and others like him into the muck. Putting on a red badge would make him a traitor not just to the Decepticons, but to everything he’d fought for.

            And Wing. What would Wing say, do, if Drift went back to the war? Would he come with him still? Would he go home?

            His Spark twinged. _Haven’t you dragged him into your war already? First Lockdown, now Turmoil. What next? The DJD?_

            He pulsed his energy field outward to banish the thought. _Don’t invite bad luck. You’ve already got enough._

            Wing had seen it now. Drift didn’t know the specifics of what Turmoil had shown him, but he could guess. It was all very much the same. Deadlock’s battles. Death, killing. At the time Deadlock had been _proud_. He’d been the strongest, the most merciless, the most cunning. Everything a Decepticon should be. Second-in-command of the cruiser _Vengeance_. His name given by Megatron himself!

           Now—now, the thought of Wing _seeing_ that—it nauseated him. When Wing had called him by his old name, he’d nearly shattered. Wing, who had always seen the best in him, seen him for what he _could be_ , rather than what he had been. Drift felt like a fraud. How could Wing stand to look at him now that he’d seen… everything?

            Something powerful nudged at his energy field. That feeling—it was familiar. He reached blindly down and his fingers brushed the hilt of the Sword. It was warm, as it had been when he’d picked it up on Theophany. His entire arm flinched, but he didn’t jerk away.

            “You concentrate on what you’re doing,” he told it.

            It gave a little push against his energy field, like a scoff, as if to say _please. I’m perfectly capable of dividing my attention, thank you very much._

            “Alone at last,” Drift said. The first time, really, since Wing had “introduced” them. And maybe he would have thought it was stupid a few years ago, but now… now he knew that if he talked to it, something was listening. He felt compelled. “Sorry I brought him back a mess. Seems like I can’t do anything right.”

            A faint, steady pulse, like a Spark: _at least you brought him back alive._

            “This will keep happening,” Drift said. “He’s not safe around me. You know what I am. You’ve seen it. And now he has too.”

            It warmed under his fingers. _And did I reject you?_ it seemed to ask. _Why should he?_

            “Because I’m not like him! I’m not like _any_ of them! I’m no knight! I’m just a gutter rat who picked up a gun one day, and now I’m a traitor on the run. From the Decepticons, from the war, from… from everything!”

            _From yourself?_

            “Yes! Fine! From myself! Deadlock was all I ever had, the only time I was of value to anyone. Without that, I’m nothing! I don’t know who Drift is supposed to be!”

            _He is the guttermech. He is the Decepticon. He is the traitor. Just as I am the hands that forged me, I am Quickrim the cycle, I am Steelfang the soldier, I am Wing, I am many more than this. Do you understand?_

            “No! No, I don’t!”

            Wing had _said_ the knights trained for years before touching a Great Sword. Probably so that once they did, whatever it said would actually make _sense_.

            He felt something like a sigh. _You will_.

            The Sword cooled slightly, its presence sliding back from his field. Drift realized he was shaking. He slumped forward, over Wing’s prone form, fighting back the urge to sob. Maybe it was a violation, maybe when Wing woke up he would face those memories Turmoil had given him and go back to his city, but Drift needed this. He rested his head on Wing’s chest, not even caring about the jagged edges, so he could feel the warmth of Wing’s Spark on his forehead. He shuttered his optics and drank in the warmth, and for a few minutes, he could almost pretend there was somewhere he belonged.

 

* * *

 

            When Wing woke up, he _woke up_. He catapulted upright, optics blazing and a shout springing from his vocalizer: “ _Deadlock!_ ”

            Then he hissed, curling in on himself as his body noticed it wasn’t finished healing. Drift knew the feeling: the terror in Wing’s cry stabbed straight to his Spark.

            “Careful,” Drift said, soothing his new hand down Wing’s back, following the planes of his wings. “It’s me. It’s Drift.”

            Wing tilted sideways towards the heat of Drift’s body. Drift helped lower him back down to the recharge slab.

            “Sorry,” Wing whispered. “Just… a bad memory purge.”

            _Memories you shouldn’t have,_ Drift thought, rubbing behind Wing’s fins. Wing caught his other hand, his new right hand, as his optics finally focused on Drift’s face. He reached up to run his fingertips just under the rim of Drift’s optics.

            “Nice to see you again,” Drift said. “How do you feel?” Wing hesitated and Drift added, “Be honest.”

            Wing attempted to smile. “Lying is against my vows.”

            “Yeah, but I know you. You can get creative with the truth you tell. I bet you never learned that from Dai Atlas.”

            “From Axe,” Wing said, then winced and coughed. “Completely honest?”

            “Yeah.”

            “I feel terrible.”

            “Yeah. The repair equipment here isn’t really what you’re used to.”

            “Where is here?” Wing craned his neck to look around, but even that seemed like too much effort.

            “Neutral colony. Space station.” Drift explained how the Neutrals had allowed them to dock for medical assistance and taken them straight to the medbay. Wing’s torn-open chest had been their first priority, then Drift’s optics and hand. “They don’t even have a working CR chamber, but their medics aren’t too bad.”

            Wing touched his chest. “No CR chamber?”

            “Yeah,” Drift said. “So… they fabricated some new armor, but it’s going to be up to your self-repair for a while.”

            Wing shifted slightly with a little moan of pain. “It seems I’ve already done my penance for the mechs I killed,” he said quietly.

            “Decepticons, Wing. Decepticons who would have killed us.”

            “Cybertronians, Drift.”

            “You said a knight’s allowed to defend himself,” Drift pointed out.

            “A knight,” Wing said. “I’m not sure I deserve—”

            “ _Don’t_ ,” Drift said, grabbing his hands. “Don’t start that again. Don’t you dare.”

            “But when Turmoil…”

            “You didn’t betray the Circle. You could have. He offered. But you didn’t.”

            “I betrayed myself.”

            Fragging knights and their fragging _honor_! “Look,” Drift said. “What Turmoil did to you… any mech would have cracked. But look at what you _did_ , Wing! You _used_ that. You got us both out of there. You can’t tell me that’s not what a knight would have done.”

            Wing looked away, still frowning.

            “If you won’t listen to me, just ask Peerless. There it is, right there.”

            Wing turned his head a little more to see the Sword lying at his side. His frown softened into confusion, then gratitude.

            “It kept you alive, Wing. And if that Sword likes you, then there’s nothing you or anyone can say. You’re a knight of the Circle.” 

            Wing’s hand brushed against the glyphs on Peerless’s blade. Drift still couldn’t read them. He wondered what they meant to Wing. Finally Wing’s little fangs flashed in a grin.

            “It _was_ a pretty good escape, wasn’t it?”

            “Yeah. You were…” Drift reached for the right words. “You were magnificent. Wish I could have seen it.”

            That got a laugh. “Thanks, Drift. Thank you for saving my life.”

            “Well, you got us out of there. So we’re even, I think.”

            The medbay door hissed and creaked open.

            “So you’re awake! That’s good. You had us worried.”

            The bot who’d spoken was of smaller build than either Drift or Wing, a cycle by the look of the kibble, with faded orange paint. The one who followed was taller, a Seeker model in gray and red.

            “These are some of the neutrals here,” Drift said to Wing. “She’s Apis, he’s Nova.” They had offered only phonetics when giving him their names, just as he had introducing himself and Wing. They may have agreed to help, but out here in a hostile galaxy, no Cybertronian could really trust strangers.

            “We brought some energon,” Apis said, her handlebar protrusions flicking at the base of her helm. “Nice to see you out of stasis, Wing. Sorry we couldn’t do more. We don’t really have a top-quality medbay.”

            “It’s more than enough,” Wing said, accepting the cube she offered. “Thank you for your help. Are you one of the medics here?”

            “Sort of. I mostly acquire parts, but I tinker some.”

            “It was kind of you to take us in.”

            “Enough of our kind die in the war every day.” Nova spoke for the first time, handing off his cube to Drift.

            “So we couldn’t very well turn you away to die,” Apis finished briskly. “Drink up. Better keep that self-repair going strong.” Wing took an obedient sip. The energon was crude stuff, nowhere near as good as what they’d brought from Crystal City, but Drift knew Wing was far too polite to show any distaste. “If you need anything else, we’ll be around.”

            Drift waited until the door shut behind them.

            “That Nova,” he said. “Ex-Decepticon, I think.”

            “How do you know?” Wing asked. He took another heroic swallow of the energon.

            “Seekers are almost always Decepticons,” Drift said. “Red optics. Keeps quiet.”

            “Maybe he has some advice for you,” Wing said. “Or you for him.”

            “I don’t have to make friends with him just because…”

            “I’m just reminding you that you don’t have to do everything alone, Drift.”

            Drift shrugged and went back to what he’d been doing ever since he got his optics back: smoothing his fingers over Wing’s audial fins and mapping every micron of his face. He’d missed the sight. Wing nuzzled into the touch, his optics slitted in pleasure, but still fixed on Drift’s face, examining him. Like he was a stranger. His hand shifted to protectively cover the panel over his hardline ports.

            He probably didn’t even realize he was doing it, but Drift noticed. Fresh anger at Turmoil swirled in his Spark. How _dare_ he. How dare he… he… _violate_ Wing that way, planting his poisonous memories to drive Wing away from him.

            “What did Turmoil show you?”

            Wing said nothing for a long moment, but his face was a damning answer in itself. Shadows passed across his optics; Drift had expected anger, fear maybe, but all he saw was sadness. Pain. That was worse.

            “I understand why you fought,” he said finally. “You were trying to do what was right.”

            It hurt. Wing’s pain hurt worse than any injury Turmoil had inflicted. He remembered Wing sobbing under the assault, seeing someone he… someone he cared about as a stranger, a monster. More than anything he wished he could reach into Wing’s mind and pluck those memories out, before they took root like a virus and destroyed the only person alive who had seen Drift as more than a killer.

            Drift took one of Wing’s hands in both of his, squeezing so tightly it had to hurt, bringing it up to his face to plant desperate kisses on each joint.

            “I never wanted you to see that,” he whispered. “Can you forgive me?” Wing’s silence tore at him. Drift pressed the captured hand to his forehead. “No, don’t,” he begged. “Don’t. I don’t deserve…”

            “Drift,” Wing whispered.

            “I can’t change it,” Drift said. “I can’t… I can’t go back and change it. Deadlock is…” And the Sword’s words made more sense, now. “Deadlock is me. I can’t undo what he did. But I…”

            “Drift,” Wing tried again, and again Drift shook his head. Wing’s kindness would destroy him, his gentle words would lance through his Spark like needles. Instead Drift leaned forward, and Wing’s arms, weak as they were, wrapped around his shoulders and held him until his vents stabilized.

            “I want to balance the scales,” Drift said finally.

            “Penance,” Wing whispered. Drift nodded, and stayed in his embrace for a while, until Wing’s arms started trembling with effort. He eased back, letting Wing rearrange himself with little winces of pain.

            “Let me help you,” Wing said.

            “Yes,” Drift whispered. Wing’s optics went dim, as though he’d sunk back into stasis. Drift wouldn’t be surprised, with how hard his self-repair was working. But after a while, Wing spoke again.

            “Will you hold me?”

            “How?”

            Wing pushed up onto his arms, scooting forward on the recharge slab and patting the space behind him.

            “I think we can make this work,” Drift said.

            It took some maneuvering and a yelp of pain from Wing, but they managed to squeeze Drift onto the recharge slab, with Wing nestled between his legs, curled into his side. Drift wrapped his arms around the other mech. Their plating fit together like a smooth transformation sequence.

            “May I tell you something?” Wing asked shyly.

            “Anything,” Drift said.

           “I found something else I’m afraid of,” Wing whispered, a solemn confession. “And maybe Dai Atlas is right, and my emotions are controlling me. Maybe I _am_ selfish. But I… I don’t see how this can be wrong.” Drift squeezed him in silent encouragement. Wing tilted his head up, his gaze seeking Drift’s earnest and imploring. “I’m afraid to lose you.”

            It felt like Drift’s Spark was doing backflips on its way to go visit his T-cog, filling his internals with fizzing heat all along the road.

            “Wherever your path leads you,” Wing said, “I’ll be at your side. That’s where _my_ path leads me. I’m meant to be here. I know it. I couldn’t tell you how I know, but…”

            Drift covered Wing’s mouth with his own, swallowing Wing’s startled squeak. “Wing,” he mumbled into the jet’s mouth. It was all he could say, the only word that wouldn’t cheapen the moment. “Wing.”

            “And…” Wing gasped, when he managed to get his mouth back, “a question. Why do you make a Decepticon badge out of your Spark casing?”

            Drift blinked at the sudden non sequitor. “I’m a bad example. It’s supposed to be forever. It’s supposed to mean that you’d give everything for the cause.”

            Wing nodded thoughtfully. “I want to give you something.”

            He reached into his subspace and pulled out something that glinted in the starlight. Drift knew what it was the minute Wing pressed it into his hand: the shard of Wing’s Spark casing, the one that had gotten them off of the _Vengeance_.

            “I would,” Wing whispered, “give everything for you, Drift.”

            Drift squeezed him as tightly as he dared, even as Wing gasped in pain, because Wing was clinging to him just as hard.

            “I know.”

           Wing pressed kisses to his collar fairing, the only place he could reach, snuggling closer with a contented sigh. “The stars are beautiful. Aren’t they?”

            Drift turned his head to look out the viewport. He’d seen plenty of starfields in his life, so many he’d stopped caring. But here, now, with Wing nestled comfortably against him… it brought back a rare happy memory of Cybertron: lying with Gasket, pressed close enough to share their warmth, as Gasket pointed out nonsense pictures in the sky.

            _One thing you genuinely enjoy._

            “They are.”

           Wing’s systems hummed quietly; his plating was warm from the self-repair, and Drift shifted him even closer, pressing a kiss to the crest of Wing’s helm. Wing’s vents were steady, almost like meditation, but his optics were bright and admiring as he watched the stars. After so long underground, no wonder the stars, for him, were a novelty again, all the more beautiful for their long absence.

            After a while Wing spoke. “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

            “When?”

            “Before… before Turmoil. You told me that however people change, the past is still a part of them.”

            “Yeah.”

            “I gave up my name,” Wing said quietly. “I gave up who I used to be. But I… I think you should know. I’ve seen your past now. I should tell you about mine.”

            Drift’s fingers wrapped tighter around the shard of casing, despite the sharp edges. “You don’t need to break your vows for me, Wing.”

            “It’s not against my vows to remember. Will you promise never to use it, if I swear never to call you Deadlock again?”

            “I promise.”

            Wing leaned against his shoulder. “Sunstrike,” he said, in elegant full-spectrum: light so intense that it hurt to look at, but warm and real and bright.

            “I like Wing,” Drift said, after a moment’s consideration. Wing laughed, gently butting against Drift’s chin.

            “So do I.”

            They curled together, sharing their warmth, watching the stars while Wing whispered stories from his life before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, the end of an arc is such a sweet feeling.


	12. Like A Million Suns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes do things that would make Dai Atlas very crabby indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up for some unrepentant fluff?

            It was a few days before Wing was able to walk again. Drift had had plenty of time to explore the Neutrals’ station. More to the point, plenty of time to find what passed as a bar. A _proper_ bar. With actual engex, even if it was pretty crude stuff. He was used to worse. First thing he did when Wing was cleared to leave the medbay? Drag him to the bar.

            “This is probably not medically advisable,” Wing muttered, but without much strength behind it, as Drift tugged him through the door.

            “You’re fine,” Drift said. “What better way to celebrate being fully functional again?”

            “I can think of one or two.”

            “Later,” Drift said. “Sit and have one with me. Probably not what you’re used to, but better than the sludge we had with the ‘cons. Come on. Dai Atlas would disapprove.”

            “You’ve got my attention,” Wing admitted with a grin, taking the seat Drift pushed him into. Drift made a stop at the bar and brought back two shots to start off.

            “Not against your vows, is it?”

           “Some give it up of their own choosing, but it isn’t required.” Wing picked up his glass and swirled it around. He looked better every day: with a generous ration of enriched energon, his self-repair had smoothed over most of his injuries. His new chest plating, and other miscellaneous pieces of freshly fabricated armor, was still a dull off-white, just like Drift’s new arm. One of these days they would both have to buy some good paint and do some serious detailing. “But Dai Atlas encourages restraint. I’m just surprised the Neutrals have this when they’re so short on resources.”

            “Because a bar is one of the minimum requirements for civilization? Life’s hard enough as it is. Sometimes the little things just make it bearable for a while.”

            Wing smiled. “To the little things,” he said, raising his glass. Drift clinked his own against it and took a swallow.

            “Okay. So tell me about Dai Atlas. What’s going on there? What’s your history? And don’t say you don’t have one.”

            “Dai Atlas? He’s a mentor. He’s the oldest of the knights. Leader of the Circle.” Wing knocked his engex back in one swallow.

            “Woah there,” Drift said. “This stuff’s a little…”

            “Crude?”

            “Strong.”

            “Airframe,” Wing said. “Extremely high fuel efficiency. It will take more than that to get me overcharged.”

            “Better have another,” Drift said, motioning the server over. Wing gave him a disapproving look, even though his energy field was awash with amusement.

            “Drift,” he said, accusatory. “You are trying to get me overcharged.”

            “That would get Dai Atlas _really_ grumpy,” Drift said. “Come on, give me some detail. You’re always sniping at each other. What’s the deal?”

            Wing shrugged and took another swallow. “It’s a matter of interpretation. Dai Atlas and I don’t always agree on the way the central tenets of the Circle should be followed.”

            “Example?”

            “For one thing, the wording.”

            “The… wording.”

            “It’s _important_ , Drift. There’s an older version of the tenets with different wording that _completely_ changes the meaning, and it’s not the Dai Atlas-sanctioned version for his knights.”

            “So you like the old one and he likes the new one.” Drift massaged the base of a finial. “This is a lot less juicy than I was going for. Better have another.”

            Wing knocked back another shot, a little slower this time.

            “Drift,” he said again, with a grin a little less composed than usual, “you are _trying_ to get me overcharged!”

            “You bet I am,” Drift said. “I’m satisfying my curiosity. So what else?”

            “About what?” Wing asked, distracted.

            “Dai Atlas.”

            “Dai Atlas!” Wing echoed. “Dai Atlas, all the time it’s Dai Atlas, what’s so interesting?”

            “Seems like a big deal to you, is all. I never saw you together when you weren’t arguing. It’s one thing if you just don’t like the mech, but you bring him up all the time, you worry so much about what he’d think, what he approves or disapproves of. I can’t tell if you want to kick his aft or if you want him to hug you!”

            Wing was halfway through the next glass. “Dai Atlas! He’s just so _rigid_! He’s stiff and he’s unyielding and he’ll just pound it into you again and again until he has his way!”

            Drift choked on his swallow. “Tell me you’re doing that to mess with me.”

            “Doing what?”

            “ _Please_ tell me you’re messing with me. Tell me it’s not, you know. Like that. Between you. You’re trying to get me to squirm, right?”

            “Maybe,” Wing said, smirking over the rim of his glass. “A knight doesn’t kiss and tell.”

            “Thank you _very_ much for that mental image,” Drift said sourly—yeah, it was easy enough to picture Wing, all passionate and writhing, white plating sliding over blue. Like he needed another reason to dislike Dai Atlas.

            “So we disagree on these things,” Wing said, a valiant effort to pull himself back on track. “And I mean, I’m an airframe, I’m stuck living in this underground city, there’s barely room to stretch my wings without smacking into a stalactite. So I _have_ to go out and fly. And that’s how I found the slavers, and I just… I needed to _do_ something, but Dai Atlas just… Dai Atlas…”

            Wing stared into the bottom of his glass.

            “I really shouldn’t,” he said, pushing it abruptly away. “Not here. I represent the knights to these people, this isn’t good conduct.”

            “Let’s get you home,” Drift said. “I’ll bring the bottle. We’ll pick up where we left off.”

 

* * *

 

            All that training had more uses than Drift had thought, because Wing was admirably coordinated on the way back to their borrowed hab suite, long enough for Drift to get both of them settled on the berth with the engex between them. With some encouragement, he got Wing to continue the story. The jet was definitely less composed than usual, his speech slurring ever so slightly.

            “Well so I was always going _outside_ , right? I’m a flier. I need to fly. And so then I found the slavers’ camp. I went over and over, scouting as much as I could, and every time I came back I got in trouble with Dai Atlas, right?”

            “Right.”

            “Because I couldn’t _lie_ to him when he asked where I’d been. So I had penance. And penance and over and over. So then Dai Atlas tells me…” Wing took another comforting swig of engex. “So Dai Atlas tells me, he says I’m putting everyone in danger and that’s not what a Knight does.” He spread his hands imploringly. “But I _couldn’t_ just sit and watch those slavers… misusing… abusing those people!”

            “People?”

            “They’re people somewhere, Drift.” Wing shook his head as though to clear it. “Drift. That’s… really hard to say. Drift.”

            “So Dai Atlas…?”

            “So he tells me,” Wing burst out, his energy field spiking, upset, “that if I put us in danger again he’d challenge my place in the Circle.”

            “And you…?”

            “What was I _supposed_ to do?! A knight helps people! I couldn’t just leave them there. So I went out again. And there’s this… this person. This Cybertronian. I couldn’t believe—it’d been so long. I thought, I thought maybe we could help each other. It was like… it was a miracle.”

            “Some miracle,” Drift said. “Just me. So… you brought me back.”

            “Couldn’t leave you to die. And Dai Atlas. He was… he was…”

            “Furious?”

            “ _Understatement_ ,” Wing said. “He said you could stay but… well you know. And then, and there was a tribunal.”

            “A tribunal?”

            “For me,” Wing said. “Dai Atlas challenged my place in the Circle.”

            “I… I didn’t know,” Drift said. “You never told me.”

            “You had enough to worry about. Don’t be guilty, Drift. You were just the latest of my offenses. And probably the biggest. Worth it.”

            “So what happened?”

            “When you join the Circle…” Wing shook his head again. He seemed to be coming out of it. High-efficiency airframe. “It’s… it’s up to the Swords. Can’t say more. But it was the same for this. It’s not up to Dai Atlas, really, even though he’s the leader of the Circle. He put it to the Swords.”

            “How?”

            “S-ssecret. Sorry. But the Swords. Peerless spoke to them and the Swords said I could stay.”

            “You went through all of that for me and you _still_ think it was worth it?”

            Wing drew him closer with a brilliant smile. “Finding you was the best thing I ever did.”

            Wing’s mouth tasted like engex, all the sweeter on his glossa, and even more intoxicating. The jet’s fingers moved over Drift’s neck cables, sliding to the place where his helm joined his neck. Drift enjoyed the kisses, but when Wing whined and reached down between his legs, he pulled carefully away, keeping a chaste distance.

            “Not right now, Wing,” he said. “You should probably recharge first, or you’ll regret it in the morning. I promise.”

            “Okay,” Wing said, and like the flicking of a switch he went from aroused to sleepy, rolling onto his side as Drift eased him down to the berth. His fingers curled lightly into a seam on Drift’s hip, either seeking comfort or a reassurance that Drift would still be there in the morning.

            Either way, Drift felt no urge to get up and move as Wing’s systems quieted down to a low hum and his energy field fell into the soft, warm pulse of recharge. He took the engex and leaned over to put it on the floor, out of the way, careful not to move any more than he had to. Then he sat quietly, watching Wing.

            He wondered if he would ever believe in himself as much as Wing believed in him. A difficult prospect for someone who wasn’t even sure who he was anymore. He knew Deadlock. He wasn’t so sure about Drift. Who did Wing see in him? What had he seen the night they’d met? His “miracle?”

            Wing’s energy field licked against his. He found his own field shifting, mingling with Wing’s. He turned his attention inward, gradually altering his field until they were synchronized. Wing gave a little sigh. The remaining tension in his frame evaporated, even the fingers still hooked into Drift’s hip. A faint underlying pulse eased subtly into their mingled fields; it took only a moment to identify its age and depth as the Sword.

            He felt a flicker of triumph, but didn’t let it disrupt his calm. He was _doing_ it. The meditation. Somehow it was easier now, with Wing beside him, curled and peaceful.

            A moment he wanted to last forever.

 

* * *

 

            A faint groan roused him. Checking his chronometer, Drift found that he’d slipped into recharge sitting up, but his joints weren’t at all stiff—he felt fine. Perfectly relaxed.

            He looked down at Wing, who finally unwrapped his fingers from Drift’s hip to put his hand on his head instead.

            “Oh,” Wing muttered. “ _That’s_ why I never do this.”

            “Imagine how much worse off you’d be as a groundframe.”

          “No, thank you.” Wing’s optics flickered dimly online to glare at him half-heartedly. “Why didn’t it hit you?”

            “Who says it didn’t,” Drift said. “But I didn’t have as much.”

            Wing gave a long stretch that let his fingertips brush the hilt of the Sword. He settled, smiling up at Drift like he was the very best sight for a hungover jet.

            “Still think I was worth it?” Drift asked, running a finger along Wing’s audial flares. Wing’s smile brightened even further.

            “I’m here, aren’t I?”

            Drift leaned down to kiss him. Wing’s EM field swirled lazily around his as his fins shifted contentedly.

            “I know what will help you feel better,” Drift said into his mouth. “They’ve got washracks here. Actual washracks.”

            Wing made an eager noise. “Washracks. That sounds _amazing._ ”

            He only grumbled a little bit about how bright the hallways were, which Drift took as a promising sign.

            There were a few downsides to living on _Wayward Light_ , and the lack of washracks was one of them. He and Wing kept themselves clean with rags and solvent, but there was some grit you just couldn’t get that way, and besides that, it was just the _principle_ of the thing: standing under an actual hot spray, letting it soak into all of your systems? It was one of the luxuries Deadlock had liked best after living in the squalor of the Dead End all that time, and Drift still loved it.

            Here, now, it felt like he was washing away the last bits of dried and flaking energon from his repaired systems, the last of the scoring from their battles on the _Vengeance_ , the echoes of Turmoil’s touch.

            “Ohhh,” Wing sighed, tilting his face up towards the spray. “Oh, that feels… _so_ good.”

            Drift groaned in agreement. The solvent trickled under his armor, washing out grit and grease that he hadn’t been able to get at in ages. It was pleasantly hot enough to relax cables that had been stiff since the _Vengeance_ appeared on their scanners. He shifted his plating along transformation seams, working at wiring that needed it. Wing seemed to have sunk into a happy trance, standing with his optics dim, letting the solvent slosh over him. Drift’s mouth twitched into a smile at the sight of him.

            “You awake?”

            Wing hummed in response. Drift snorted and moved close, snatching a rag from the holder and sliding it down Wing’s back. The jet purred. His wings extended slowly, trembling under the wash of solvent. Drift ran the rag down the slender struts, gently tracing each scar that Wing’s self-repair hadn’t yet smoothed over. But that brought back too many unpleasant memories. He moved on to the joints of the wings, spots he knew for sure would have Wing melting beneath his hands. And sure enough Wing let out a positively filthy moan, pressing back against him.

            “Drift,” he said, low and throaty. “Don’t stop.”

            “You’re going to do me next, right?” Drift asked. He paused. “That… came out wrong, didn’t it?”

            Wing laughed. “I wouldn’t call it _wrong_.”

            By the time Drift was satisfied that Wing was entirely clean, both their systems were running hot. Wing nuzzled against him, his fingers almost too clever with the rag all up and down Drift’s back. Drift rocked against him, mouthing at his cheek. Wing sighed, his wings trembling, and those pretty white planes got to Drift in all the best ways. His panel clicked open automatically. Wing laughed softly.

            “One moment,” he said. “A knight never leaves a job half-finished.”

            He seemed to take his sweet time with every segment of Drift’s spine, working his way down to his aft. He sank down as he worked until he was on his knees. His hands settled on Drift’s thighs as he leaned forward, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to Drift’s spike cover. Drift’s whole body jolted forward.

            “Wing!”

            The jet glanced up at him, optics glinting attractively under the clean lines of his helm, and smiled wickedly. “Yes?”

            He flicked his glossa against the spike cover and Drift slumped against the wall. It was like he could suddenly feel each and every droplet of solvent that ran over his plating and into his wiring. “Please,” he croaked.

            “Yes,” Wing breathed, again, running his glossa around the edges of the cover until it slid back and Drift’s spike jutted against his lips. Drift scraped his fingers against the slippery wall as Wing opened his mouth for the eager spike. He’d been right about Wing having a clever mouth. He pressed his hips forward without thinking, but Wing moved with him, his tongue flirting with sensors all along the underside. The jet purred, thumbs rubbing little circles into the armor of Drift’s thighs.

           “Frag,” Drift groaned, watching. Wing had his optics half-shuttered, his face slack with bliss, his fins rustling, like there was nowhere he’d rather be. Drift couldn’t bear to look at him for too long—his spike gave a fresh surge of want and it would be embarrassing to overload so soon—so he let his head fall back against the wall, draping his forearm across his optics for good measure. “ _Wing_.”

            It was almost too much just listening, because Wing was going about his task with admirable enthusiasm, with all the little hums and slurps that entailed. One of Wing’s hands dropped from Drift’s thigh, and over the sound of the solvent spray, Drift could just barely hear the erotic slide of metal that meant Wing was stroking himself.

            “Frag frag frag Wing w… _mm_. Wait. I… hold on, stop a minute.”

            Wing drew off of Drift’s spike with a last hungry suck, then had the nerve to look up while his glossa ran coyly across his lips. “Hmm?”

            “I want,” Drift tried, distracted by the overpowering sight of Wing kneeling in front of him with a hand on his own spike. “I want…”

            Wing flowed to his feet, pressing his body all along the length of Drift’s. “Yes.”

            He palmed Drift’s spike, already shifting his legs apart to offer the slick heat of his valve, but Drift stopped him again.

            “No,” he said, haltingly, “I want…” It was harder to put into words than he’d expected. He wrapped his fingers around Wing’s spike, giving a few meaningful strokes. Comprehension dawned on Wing’s face.

            “Oh,” he said, barely a sound at all. Then a smile, tinged with gratitude. “I’m honored, Drift.”

            Drift eased his legs apart, trying to shift his hips up, but Wing’s free hand soothed along his waist while the other gave Drift’s spike an affectionate squeeze.

            “Not here,” Wing said, leaning up to kiss him. “I want to do this right.”

            “I thought a knight never leaves a job half-finished,” Drift said, glancing down.

           “Of course we’ll wrap up here first…” Wing broke off with a gasp as Drift gave his spike a few good strokes, putting his favorite twist at the end. He tucked his face into the crook of Drift’s neck, his hand moving again on Drift’s spike. The solvent eased the friction of their plating as they slid against each other, pressing close as though trying to combine into one. The scrape of their armor, the panting of their vents, and the soft clinking of Wing’s skirting panels bounced off the walls, blending into the falling solvent.

            Drift’s free hand dragged across Wing’s flightpanels, perhaps more roughly than he would have liked, as he slid into a slow, drawn-out, strangely relaxed overload. Steam rose from his overheated frame as he pulled Wing closer, setting his dentae to sensitive audial flares. Wing surged against him with a moan more like singing, his wings shivering under Drift’s hand. His hips twitched up as Drift coaxed him into his own overload, biting back his cries for privacy’s sake.

            Drift retrieved the long forgotten rag and wiped the transfluid away, leaving both of them spotless. Wing collected himself enough to grope for the shower controls and turn it off, activating the air dryers without looking—his face was still tucked into Drift’s throat as his little fangs nipped at freshly clean cables.

            “Do you still…?” Wing murmured.

            Drift’s interface panel tingled. “Yes.”

 

* * *

 

            Which brought them here, standing by the berth in their room, with Wing’s fingers tightly intertwined with Drift’s.

            “How do you want it?” Drift asked, a businesslike front. He was no stranger to using his valve, but there was a certain vulnerability that came with it—at least, it had when he did it. But Wing, he thought, might be different. He rarely seemed vulnerable when riding Drift’s spike.

            “It’s about what _you_ want, Drift.”

            “I knew you’d say that,” Drift grumbled, settling on his back on the berth. “You said you wanted to do this right. So, what’s that mean?”

            Wing sat for a moment on the edge of the berth, watching him with immeasurable fondness. Then he shifted between Drift’s thighs as he leaned down and brushed his lips across Drift’s cheek, forehead, nasal ridge, mouth.

            “Thank you, Drift,” he whispered.

            “For what?” The kisses absorbed some of the sharpness from Drift’s tone and some of the tension from his body. He was still tingling all over from their earlier overload.

            Wing smiled. “You.”

            Wing slid down between Drift’s legs, running his hands up and down the sleek black thighs. His attention shifted from Drift’s face, down his body, following the lines of his frame to his hips and in between. He slid his fingers across the equipment covers that Drift had bared. Drift squirmed under the touch, spiraling his valve cover open. If they were going to do this, best to do it now. Wing snorted.

            “What’s your hurry?”

            “Just…” Drift turned his head aside, faceplates heating up. He hadn’t wanted anyone else inside him for a long time, and it embarrassed him to admit to wanting it now.

            One of Wing’s fingers eased cautiously into his valve, as though testing unfamiliar territory. Finding it slick already, he slid in a second finger, optics flicking back up to Drift’s face for a blazing moment. They were brighter than suns, and his expression hovered uncomfortably close to awe. Drift bit down a groan, pushing his hips up.

            Wing took the hint. Drift’s plating rattled with shivers as Wing sought out long-dormant sensory nodes, exploring his valve with ridiculous patience. Drift’s fingers scraped against the berth. He wasn’t sure whether to ground himself or let go and become lost.

            Wing slid down further on the berth, bending over. He raised one of Drift’s legs, draping it over his shoulder—Drift could feel the vibrations of his softly purring turbines, and the sensation just went straight to his valve. But he had just a moment to get used to it before the touch of Wing’s glossa sent fireworks across his EM field.

            “Wing!” The name fell from his lips in a gasp. Wing didn’t break his concentration. He dipped his glossa in deeper, hooking those same two fingers back into Drift’s valve too.

            It was too much, far too much, to watch him down there. Drift arched up, tossing his head back. Each twitch and wriggle of Wing’s glossa sent heat pulsing through him, setting his Spark whirling and unleashing a fresh flood of lubricant in his valve. Somewhere Drift was dimly aware that his vocalizer was running. Embarrassing things like cursing in sixteen different dialects, and a little begging, and Wing’s name, all broken and mixed together. He clenched his hands into fists and ruthlessly battled down his rising charge. He would _not_ let this end so soon.

            And then his valve was empty, cold, and Drift let out a plaintive sound at the loss. Wing’s vents were running hard as the jet straightened up, straddling one of Drift’s thighs while letting the other leg hook around his slim waist. He looked… dazed. Drift managed a grin up at him.

            “What’s wrong? Haven’t done this in a while? If you need any reminders about what goes where…”

            Wing laughed. “I think I’ll manage,” he said, shifting until the tip of his spike brushed against Drift’s slippery valve rim. Drift squirmed, pulling Wing forward with the leg wrapped around him.

            “Frag,” he gasped as Wing sank into him. He hadn’t felt this way in… so long. Wing’s mouth was open, but he seemed to have lost the ability to speak. Instead he started to move, and it was nothing like the demanding thrusts Drift remembered from past experiences. With Wing it was one long steady flow of motion, and for some reason it reminded Drift of how he fought: never still, always moving, bending away from direct force, coming from a different angle, his blades a natural extension of his arms. And Drift moved with him, more gracefully than he usually managed in their sparring: for once he could match Wing, knew all the moves, and their bodies fit together. It was slow, searching, sharing.

            Drift’s spike cover spiraled open and Wing’s fingers trailed up and down the spike’s length, adding yet another dimension to his pleasure. His skirting panels slid gently over each other as he moved—the sound had always put dirty thoughts into Drift’s head, and now, he knew he’d never hear it without thinking of this.

            Drift couldn’t fight the rising tide of pleasure, and he didn’t want to. He heard Wing take deep gulps of air, saw him shutter his optics tightly and bite his lip, and the realization filled him with sudden warmth: Wing was trying to hold back his overload, even though it had to feel amazing—always felt amazing in someone else’s valve—he was waiting on Drift, putting his pleasure first. Drift could have laughed if he hadn’t been panting to support his vents. It was so typically Wing.

            He made it difficult, rolling his hips up against Wing’s, taking his spike deeper, altering the rhythm slightly. But he couldn’t concentrate for long, not with how Wing’s spike moved against his underused, oversensitive nodes. So he threw his head back and let it all go, let Wing’s hand and Wing’s spike bring him to a moaning overload, spilling transfluid across his belly.

            Wing gasped as Drift’s calipers contracted, locking him in place. His hips surged again, like a graceful lunge, and his hands tightened on Drift’s hips as he overloaded, wet heat spilling into Drift’s valve.

            For a while they stayed frozen, all vents thrown wide open to relieve the heat rising from well-used systems. Drift gave Wing’s back a nudge with the leg still wrapped around him and Wing—well, he was too graceful to _slump_ , but he seemed to melt onto Drift’s front, his spike still nestled warmly in Drift’s valve. He pressed fragile kisses to Drift’s lips.

            “Thank you,” he whispered, and “Thank you” again. As though Drift had given him a priceless gift. That was a foreign notion to Drift—the idea that his valve was something to be treasured, not just something to be used. But Wing had known that all along—he offered Drift his valve because he enjoyed it, because it was a kind of pleasure he liked to share.

            Would he ever stop learning from Wing? Drift’s lips twitched into a wry smile as he gathered Wing closer in his arms. _Probably not_.


	13. Bring On The Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes deal with some outlying issues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. It's been 48 days. (Of course I count them.) Please accept this very humble token of my apology and hopefully I can kick myself back into shape.

           A memory. How could it be a memory? It _felt_ like a memory. Half his. Half… someone else’s. Someone dark. He knelt, swordless, his hands bound behind him. He could feel the bonds. Smell the smoke. When he lifted his head he could see… he could see… _no_. He shuttered his optics. The sight was too terrible: Crystal City shattered and gutted, smoke pouring from her broken towers.

            “These ones are dangerous.” That _voice_. That voice belonged to a thousand cuts in his armor and wiring, the hands that tore open his Spark chamber and reached inside. “Kill them all.”

            A single shot from a blaster sent a bolt of sheer terror through his Spark. He didn’t want to look to his left, but he had to. Just in time to see a second mech press the barrel of his blaster between Redline’s optics and fire.

            “Monster!” Axe bellowed, wrenching against his heavy-grade cuffs. He knelt next in the line between Redline and Wing. “He was a _medic_!”

            The mech holding the blaster laughed. And Wing—knew that laugh. Knew it, and it broke him.

            “Drift,” he choked. “Drift, _why_ …?”

            The mech sneered at him. “That’s not my name.” Deadlock pressed the blaster to Axe’s forehead.

            “Drift, _please_ ,” Wing cried. “Please, no!”

            _Bang_. Axe fell backwards. On Wing’s other side Dai Atlas roared in anguish.

            “You brought this here!” he shouted—not at Deadlock. At Wing.

            “Drift,” he whispered, as Deadlock stepped in front of him.

            “That’s not who I am,” Deadlock said.

            “I don’t believe you,” Wing whispered. Deadlock’s optics narrowed. He pressed his blaster to Wing’s forehead.

            “You’re cute when you beg. Do it again.”

            “A knight doesn’t beg,” Dai Atlas said. Without looking away from Wing, Deadlock aimed his blaster and fired one shot; a heavy body hit the ground.

            “Please,” Wing whispered, not for his own life, but for this to be over. To wake up from this awful dream. The blaster pressed against his head.

            “Pathetic,” Deadlock said.

            The blaster fired and Wing came awake already casting desperately out for Peerless at it leaned quietly against the wall. His fingers wrapped around the hilt and his head cleared. A nightmare. A terrible nightmare, born of the foreign memories from Turmoil and his own imagination. His plating was still rattling with shivers.

            “Drift?” he murmured, but when he turned, the rest of the berth was empty. He checked his chronometer. He’d recharged much longer than he normally would, since his self-repair was still siphoning most of his energy. Drift was always awake first. His past had made him a light sleeper. Still… of all times to disappear…!

            A message from Drift popped to the front of his queue. He’d gone on an errand. Well, at least he’d let Wing know, but that didn’t solve this problem here and now.

            Wing’s vents hitched in a sob and he pulled the Sword closer. He could still smell the burning City, see the bodies of his mentors discarded on the ground. Deadlock’s derisive sneer. His laugh, like Drift’s, but harsher. Darker. Corrupted.

            He shuddered. The Sword pulsed reassurance into his Spark, but what he really needed was Drift in his arms. The Drift he knew. Not the shadow haunting the fringes of Wing’s memory.

            The room felt suddenly claustrophobic. He settled the Sword between his shoulders and went out, quietly nodding to any of the others who greeted him. His aimless feet led him to an observation deck where he could see much of the station laid out below. The station was cobbled together from the ships the Neutrals had used to flee Cybertron. His optics picked out places that were worn down, aged beyond repair.

            A stark contrast to what he knew. Crystal City was a pale echo of the “Golden Age” that had never existed, a vision dreamed up by mechs hiding from a war that had torn their world apart, powered by a willing exchange with something larger and older than any of them. Was this what would have become of them without that exchange? The orphans of Cybertron, scavengers, scraping together whatever they could to survive?

            “It’s not a lot, but it’s home,” a voice said from beside him. Apis had come to join him. She leaned against the railing, staring out across her station. “I know. We’re lucky to have this much.”

            “Lucky,” Wing echoed hollowly. They had candy in Crystal City. _Candy_. And Apis considered herself lucky to have… this much. His Spark ached.

            _I want to go home,_ a plaintive, selfish part of him whispered. The image of the burning city flashed before him again and he shuddered.

            Apis looked at him sidelong. “You okay?”

            “I’m fine,” Wing said. “Just…”

            He shut his mouth and tried to shrug it off, but she tilted her head to the side, knowingly.

            “Nightmare,” she said. “Nova gets them too. Nothing to be ashamed of. It’s a miracle any of us can recharge peacefully after four million years of war.” She sighed, looking out over the station again. After a minute, she said, “It wasn’t always like this. We used to have a better supply line, but now…”

            “What happened?” Wing asked, when she hesitated.

            “Well, we’re officially neutral, so we’re protected under the Tyrest Accord. So we’ve never been outright attacked. But a while back some Decepticons set up a station near here. They’ve been intercepting our supply ships, taking whatever they like.”

            “That’s against the Accord.”

            “Sure,” she said with a helpless shrug. “But this is the galaxy’s armpit. You know how it is… nobody cares about Neutrals like us.”

            _No. I didn’t know at all._

            “It was doubly good of you to help us when you have so little to go around,” he said instead. He didn’t mention that harboring a fugitive from the Decepticons, like Drift, was also against the Accord, and might give Decepticons an excuse to attack. But if Drift’s instincts about her friend Nova had been correct, he had a feeling she already knew.

            “In my experience, helping someone is always worth the cost.”

            Wing smiled wryly. “Helping another is the highest calling any of us can aspire to.”

            “Something like that, yeah.”

            “The Decepticon station,” Wing said, after a moment’s silence, but before he could continue, a welcome voice called to him.

            “There you are.”

            They both turned to see Drift and Nova coming towards them. Each carried two large buckets.

            “About time you woke up,” Drift said. “I thought you were going to recharge the whole day.”

            “Go easy on him,” Apis said. “His self-repair has had a lot to deal with. What’s that you’ve got?”

            “It’s a surprise,” Drift said, shooting a smile at Wing. The smile was so unlike Deadlock’s cruel smirk from his nightmare that Wing wanted to kiss him right there, but he refrained. Instead he took the buckets from Nova’s hands.

            “Let me.”

            “Thanks,” Drift told Nova, and he and Wing hauled their buckets back towards their hab suite.

            “How did you get these?” Wing asked. He had a good guess what was in the buckets. “If they give us anything more we’ll have to—”

            “Bought and paid for,” Drift said.

            “With what?”

            “You’ve got your secrets, I’ve got mine,” Drift said, remotely coding the door open. He put down his load and stretched with a wince. “Ow.”

            Wing’s mouth twitched. “Something the matter?”

            “Been a long time since I’ve ached in a few of these places,” Drift admitted. Wing stepped close to him, twining their now-empty fingers as their chests bumped softly together.

            “Worth it,” Drift murmured, tilting his head down to kiss Wing. “I forgot…” He hesitated. Wing didn’t push him. Drift had opened up enough last night; he was a private person, and he’d need some time before he could let Wing past his defenses like that again. “Never mind. Come see what I got us.”

            “New paint?” Wing guessed as Drift crouched down and opened the buckets.

            “New paint.” Drift glanced up as he took other items from his subspace one by one. “You okay? You look shaky.”

            “Just a memory purge.”

            Drift went quiet, sorting out the supplies. Finally he snarled quietly, “When I get my hands on Turmoil, I’m going to rip out his hardline cables. Then his optics. Then his Spark.”

            His growl sounded so much like Deadlock that the phantom sensation of a blaster pressed to his head shivered through Wing. He knelt in front of Drift, reaching for his hands to still them.

            “A knight doesn’t act in vengeance, Drift. It’s a virus. And it won’t change what happened.”

            Drift avoided his gaze and tugged his hands out of Wing’s hold. “Let’s get you done first,” he said. “You’ve got more surface area that needs it and I don’t want to run out halfway.”

            Wing understood: Drift had begun to feel safe with him, on _Wayward Light_ , and then his past had shattered his sanctuary. They both needed to rebuild that sense of security. Besides, it was nice to stand still and let Drift go over every micron of his armor, sanding down the rough patches where his self-repair had knitted up his injuries.

            “Anything special I should know about your paintjob? Want to shake it up? Not too late to get some different colors. Just think how you’d look in orange.”

            Wing laughed. “I’d rather not. It’s not really becoming for a knight of the Circle.”

            “I noticed that,” Drift said. “Lots of primary colors.”

            “It’s how we distinguish ourselves,” Wing said. “Like your… like the faction badges. So that if any civilian needs help, they know who to ask.”

            “You pick your own or do they choose for you, when you join up?”

            “Either,” Wing said. “During the initiation… which is—”

            “Secret, I know. Stop squirming.”

            “—secret, sorry… you’re stripped to bare plating. No pretense, no hiding. Once it’s over you’re painted in the Circle’s colors.”

            Wing still remembered the first time he’d seen himself as a knight, with the Sword’s weight still new between his shoulders. He cast a smile at Peerless where it leaned on the wall. They’d known in an instant that they were meant for each other. He could still remember that first touch. The first brush of his fingers against the hilt, something ancient and huge shifting under his hand, studying him with benign fascination. The intensity had nearly brought him to his knees.

            “Does the reformatting come then or earlier?”

            “In stages, to mark what level of training you’ve passed.”

            “So why did you rebuild me like one of you?”

            Wing shifted and Drift gave him a gentle smack as a reminder to keep still.

            “The idea is to bring out the true shape of a mech,” he said, faintly embarrassed. “At least, the way we see it. To take something and shape it in a way that brings out its strengths. I’m… I’m sorry if that was wrong. But you were dying. We couldn’t ask for your permission.”

            Drift shrugged. “I’m all for upgrades anyway. Just grateful you left me my badge.”

            “A piece of your Spark casing,” Wing said. “That had to be your choice, to keep or set aside.”

            Drift moved on to the primer. Wing stood still and relaxed, even offlining his optics while Drift worked. He hummed faint, aimless notes, while the cool brushstrokes moved over his plating.

            “You could sing more,” Drift said abruptly. His EM field flickered with embarrassment as Wing turned on his optics.

            “I didn’t want to irritate you,” Wing admitted, his own field echoing the embarrassment. He hummed frequently, but usually stopped when Drift came around. It seemed like the sort of thing he would have scoffed at. All their time on _Wayward Light_ he hadn’t done much real singing, not like he would back home.

            “Doesn’t irritate me,” Drift muttered. “Just, you know. If you want.”

           Wing ruffled his drying fins, suddenly self-conscious. But Drift didn’t add anything more, just kept working. By the time he’d finished on Wing’s feet, the primer on his head and shoulders was dry.

            There was something incredibly soothing about the soft brushes of paint. Wing shut off his optics again and sank into an almost meditative state. He started with humming to keep his embarrassment at bay, this time with a definite melody, and gradually slipped into the words. It was an old, old hymn passed down from Dai Atlas’s day, honoring the Guiding Hand.

            After a while he let his EM field flow out just a bit further, enough to brush against Drift’s to check his reaction without looking. Drift’s field rippled slowly with concentration laced with wonder. Encouraged, Wing slid seamlessly into another part of his repertoire.

            He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed this. Of course it didn’t sound the same without other voices working in harmony, but there was joy still to be found in singing alone. Especially to Drift.

            “That’s Old Cybertronian,” Drift said, in a lull. He was on his knees, working on Wing’s hips. At some point he’d finished with the black and moved on to the white.

            “The Primal Vernacular,” Wing corrected. “Yes.”

            “Didn’t know you spoke it.”

            “I don’t, really.”

            “Just sing it?”

            “Something like that,” Wing said. “I could translate a few phrases, but I doubt I could carry a conversation. Not like Dai Atlas and some of the others. They’ve made a study of it.”

            “It’s nice,” Drift murmured. “Got any more?”

            “I could do this for days,” Wing said. “Well… it might not sound as good after a while.”

            “I could listen forever,” Drift blurted, then his EM field snapped in tight to his plating. He covered it up by painting over a sanded patch on a skirting panel. Wing grinned, his Spark sending warmth to the tips of his fingers and toeplates.

            After an enjoyable few minutes on his wings, Drift switched over to the red paint for detail work. Wing broke off halfway through a lullabye when Drift painted a red ring around his wrist.

            “I don’t remember that being there before,” he teased.

            “It’s called embellishment.”

            “All right,” Wing said, his optics straying to the red painted around Drift’s own wrists.

            Drift added a few more red “embellishments,” working with steady hands. He added a plain border along the sharp edges of Wing’s skirting panels.

            “I like it,” Wing said as Drift sat back on his haunches, studying his work.

            “Good, because I’m not doing it again. Don’t move for a few minutes.”

           Wing glanced into the paint buckets, checking that there was still enough for Drift. The white was a little low, but there should be enough for a thorough job. If it came down to it, he could make a few “embellishments” of his own.

            Once he was dry enough to move, he set about with the sanding, primer, and paint. In a rare show of complete trust, Drift shuttered his optics, his EM field utterly calm. Wing brushed a kiss across his cheek.

            “Don’t start,” Drift mumbled sleepily. “We’ll just make a mess.”

            “Will you ever sing to me?” Wing asked eventually, as he switched from black paint to white.

            “Don’t know any songs like yours. Just… stuff from the streets. Couple of anthems. Decepticon stuff. Not really… not really your thing.”

            “How can you have any idea what ‘my thing’ is if you don’t try?”

            “Don’t want to. Want to hear yours.”

            Wing obligingly hummed a few more, though his mind wasn’t on his singing. He was thinking about the Decepticon station Apis had mentioned. If they were harassing the people here, keeping their supplies away from them, it would be the right thing to stop them. But something made him hesitate. Was it truly to help, or was it vengeance? He couldn’t stop thinking about their escape from Turmoil’s ship. Yes, he’d killed needfully, but had he enjoyed it too much? When he had attacked Turmoil, leaving Drift unguarded, had that been needful?

            And Drift. Would _he_ take this as vengeance? And did it matter, as long as the neutrals received their supplies again?

            He knew what Dai Atlas would say: keep well away from the Decepticons, avoid the temptation. _But Dai Atlas isn’t here._

            He shunted this line of thought to the back of his queue. _A knight concentrates on the matter at hand. Even if it feels like stalling._

            He tested Drift’s new paint. Dry enough for this. He picked up the detail brush laden with red paint.

            “Drift,” he said, until Drift onlined his optics. “Will you transform for me? Carefully?”

            “Why?” Drift asked, mystified.

            “Embellishment.”

            Drift snorted, but folded slowly into his altmode, careful not to scrape any of the new paint. Wing ran an approving hand over the roof.

            “Thank you.”

            “You’d better not try anything crazy,” Drift grumbled. Wing smiled, crouching down to paint a long swirling line along Drift’s side.

            “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

            He only got slightly carried away, lost in the beautiful pure red against white. It was relaxing, and took his mind off everything else. He had to keep a mental schematic of Drift’s transformation sequences in his head to make sure it would still look nice in root mode. Finally he stepped back, admiring his work from all angles.

            “Don’t change back yet,” he said. “Wait for it to dry.”

            Drift’s engine grumbled, but he stayed as he was until Wing checked the paint and declared it safe. Drift shifted carefully back to root mode and examined himself. Wing was pleased to see that he’d correctly judged where the paint would end up: as graceful red curves on his shins, shoulders, and the twin sheaths for his swords.

            “Not bad,” Drift conceded. “Now I wish I’d done more on you.”

            “I think it’s perfect, Drift.”

            “I don’t know. Could do with a little something. Like maybe ‘property of Drift’ painted somewhere special.”

            “I think _not_.”

            “Oh, you can’t tell me that doesn’t give you a few ideas.”

            Wing’s faceplates heated up. “One or two. Maybe.”

            “So?” Drift purred, scooting him back towards the berth.

            “No.” Trying to be firm was a lost cause with Drift purring all over him like that, though, and Wing couldn’t help but crack a smile. “ _No_. We just did all this work. You want to ruin our paint and do it all over again?”

            Drift sighed, but he still had that glint in his optics that promised no surrender. “You’ve got a point. I’ll just have to be _extra_ careful, then, won’t I?”

            “That… nn…” He returned the kiss Drift gave him. “That depends on what you have in mind.”

            Drift nudged him until he was sitting on the edge of the berth. Drift knelt in one fluid movement, settling between his knees.

            “Go on, lie back. Careful, though.”

            “I’m watching you,” Wing said, doing his best to sound dire and threatening.

            “Good,” Drift said, his voice dropping to a seductive rumble. “Keep watching. You said you liked that.” He tapped lightly on Wing’s interface panel. “You opening up or do I have to do it the hard way? I mean, I’d hate to ruin the new paintjob and all.”

            “I suppose you have a point,” Wing said, and Drift shot him a sharp-edged grin as he opened up.

            “Don’t worry. I’ll barely touch you.”

            Before Wing could answer, or even think too hard about that one, Drift leaned forward and brushed the very tip of his glossa against Wing’s external node. Wing made a noise rather too close to a squeak and clapped his hand over his mouth to silence it. Just as well, because Drift didn’t seem inclined to stop: he took teasing little licks, glancing up under the ridge of his helm and grinning a little wider. Wing squirmed, but Drift raised his head and said “Careful. Don’t want to scratch any new paint, right? Better hold still, if you can.”

            It was… a challenge. Especially since Drift was true to his word: he barely touched Wing. For the most part he just lapped gingerly at the little nub, occasionally throwing in a longer or firmer press of his tongue, just to keep Wing off-balance. Wing let his head fall back for a moment.

            “Hey, hey, I thought you were watching,” Drift said, mischievously. “I’m not doing anything unless you watch.”

            “It’s not fair,” Wing gasped. “Using my own kink against me.”

            “You know me,” Drift said, dimming one optic in a wink. “I don’t always play by the rules.”

            He went back to his little game and Wing went back to watching him and using every ounce of self-control not to writhe on the berth and make a very thorough mess of the new paint. He settled for trembling violently, one hand clenched hard on the berth’s surface and the other pressed over his own mouth. But the _sight_ of Drift on his knees, his optics dim with concentration, his glossa darting out in little flicks, it drove him higher and hotter until he swore he could melt right there. Then Drift pulled back a few microns, just enough to blow cold air over Wing’s external node.

            “Drift,” Wing panted, shuttering his optics even though he _knew_ Drift would just tell him _watch_ , “Drift, please…!”

            “You’re cute when you beg,” the voice said, and the moment shattered into a million razor shards. “Do it again.”

            _The smell of the smoke, the ground pressing against his knees and his hands straining against the bonds, the sound of Axe’s body crashing down—_

            The next thing he knew he was curled into a defensive crouch on the berth and Drift was sprawled out on the floor, nursing a sizeable dent in his face.

            “What the frag?!”

            “I… I’m sorry,” Wing stammered.

            “ _Frag_ , you’ve got some strong legs… what happened? Wing? Wing, are you all right?”

            “Fine,” Wing gasped, even as he wrapped his arms around himself. “I’m just… I’m fine. It’s just…”

            “I’m sorry,” Drift said, climbing to his feet and edging forward. “I thought you liked it when I talked that way.”

            Wing tried to choke out a laugh, but he couldn’t manage more than a pained sound and a grimace. “I do. Usually. It’s not your fault. It was…”

            “That nightmare.”

            Wing nodded.

            “Turmoil,” Drift growled. Wing shook his head, glancing up to meet his eyes. Immediately he regretted it. Drift looked stricken: he’d heard the word that passed, unspoken, between them. He sank down silently onto the berth. After a while his EM field reached out tentatively to brush against Wing’s, though his hands stayed twisted in his lap.

            “Guess I ruined that moment,” he said finally.

            “It wasn’t your fault,” Wing said. “I’m sorry I kicked you.”

            “Good strike. I mean, as always.”

            Wing didn’t smile. His mind was elsewhere.

            “There’s something I should tell you. It’s something Apis told me this morning.”

            “Yeah?”

            “She said there’s a station of Decepticons who’ve been cutting off their supply line.”

            “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

            “She only just told me this morning.”

            “Why didn’t you tell me this morning?! How big is this station? How many ‘cons?”

            “She didn’t say. Drift…”

            “Probably a small station. A dozen ‘cons or so. That’s six for each of us. Or, you know, five for me and seven for you. I like those odds. That’s being generous, I know you’re still not one hundred percent.”

            He was fishing for a reaction. A laugh, a cocky retort that he could take nine. At least a smile. But Wing looked away. Drift waited, then dipped his head to try to catch Wing’s gaze.

            “I can’t take sides, Drift,” Wing said finally.

            “We’re not. Thought you’d be all over this. ‘The highest calling anyone can aspire to’ and all.”

            “So you would do the same if these were Autobots?”

            “This isn’t about that. It’s about helping people. What else would it be about?”

            Wing met his eyes. “Vengeance.”

            Drift snorted. He was grinning as though this were a joke. “And what if it is? You gonna say no? Come on, Wing. I know you better than that. You won’t leave when they need your help.”

            “A knight doesn’t act in vengeance, Drift.”

            “Good thing I’m not a knight, then.”

            “You could be,” Wing murmured.

            “What, and be like you? Follow all your rules and ‘a knight does’ and ‘a knight doesn’t’ and pretend that makes me so much better than everyone else?”

            “Drift!”

            “I thought you were different, Wing. Thought you left to get away from all that.”

            “I left to decide for myself.”

            “Like you wouldn’t take a shot at Turmoil if you had the chance, after everything he did to you?”

            “A knight doesn’t…”

            “Primus! There’s a reason I didn’t take Dai Atlas on this trip, you know. Why do I still feel like he’s following me around?” Drift stormed to the door. “I’m going to talk to Apis, find out more. You stay here if you want.”

            Wing opened his mouth to call after him, but stayed silent until the door slid shut. He whirled and fought the sudden powerful urge to kick over one of the paint cans. Instead he grabbed the Sword and headed for _Wayward Light_. He needed someplace… quiet, private, familiar, comforting.

            The Circle had rebuilt the little ship inside and out: its lines and curves felt more like home than the blocky, cobbled-together station. He flung himself down cross-legged in the middle of the hold, the Sword across his knees.

            “I’m doing the best I can,” he burst out finally. “But with him it’s always two steps forward and one step back!”

            The Sword grew warm under his hands. When it “spoke,” it was more like images and feelings that Wing, through long practice, could match to words.

            _But it is still a step forward,_ it said.

            “I know.” He bent forward over it, shaking his head. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he whispered. “I’m not the knight I should be.”

            The Sword fed its warmth into him, brushing gently against his Spark. _Perhaps_ , it suggested gently, _you should focus less on the knight you “should be” and more on the knight you are._


	14. Aggressive Negotiations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes find a diplomatic solution. Or something like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like such a slacker. Forgive.

            Other bots stayed well out of Drift’s path, as though they could sense his foul mood. Apis certainly had, judging by the funny looks she’d given him. But she’d also given him the coordinates. All that mattered.

            He caught Deadlock’s snarl in his throat and kept his fangs covered, but it wasn’t easy. Damn him! ‘ _A knight can’t take sides, Drift. A knight doesn’t act in vengeance, Drift.’ Do I look like I fragging care about your rules? ‘Would you do this if they were Autobots?’ Just because I left the Decepticons doesn’t mean I’m an Autobot! I just…_

            Frag it. He could still _taste_ Wing, a great moment turned suddenly sour.

            Maybe it was time to move on. Move on like he always did: Gasket, the crime bosses, Megatron. Turmoil. And Wing. Maybe it was best to leave now. He knew it would happen eventually. Wing would get tired of him—people always did. People always gave up on him.

            _Or you give up on them_ , a voice whispered in the back of his mind, but he shook it off.

            He and Wing were just… too different. Sooner or later whatever they had would fracture and break apart, and it would _hurt_ , and maybe it was best to do the leaving now when the hurt would be less.

            He hesitated with his hand hovering just over the console at their borrowed door. Wing was probably still stewing over their fight. _Drift_ definitely was. Maybe it was best to just… go. Just go, and think it through on the way there, and then his head would be clearer, and he’d come back for Wing when he’d cleaned up. Or… or not.

            Maybe if he took the ship and left, he’d never come back.

            Hell, it’d probably be good for Wing to be stranded here. Let him see what the war did to people who weren’t the Circle of Light. Let him see the _real_ world, not this… do-gooder fairy tale he lived in.

            He jerked his hand away from the console and stalked through the halls towards the ship, and if he ever saw Wing again it would be too soon.

            _Far_ too soon, when he strode up _Wayward Light_ ’s access ramp and found Wing already waiting in the hold.

            “You here to lecture me some more?” Drift asked.

            Wing shook his head. “I told you, your path is mine. Everything’s on board, if you have the coordinates.”

            Drift hesitated. Then he brushed past without comment.

            They took up their places in the cockpit in a slightly strained silence. Drift input the coordinates he’d gotten from Apis. It would take a while to get to the station, but each of them kept to his own thoughts, watching the stars wheel past.

            The silence sat between them like an icy wall until another station appeared at last on the scanners.

            Wing spoke up at last. “Let me talk to them.”

            “Why?”

            “To negotiate.”

            “They don’t want to negotiate.”

            “Humor me,” Wing said, looking him straight in the optics. Drift shrugged it off and Wing hit the comm button. A Decepticon appeared onscreen, the gold rank crest over his optics announcing that he was the leader.

            “You gonna turn around or we gonna blast you into scrap?”

            “We’re here to discuss your breach of the Tyrest Accord and to negotiate the release of this neutral space lane.”

            “You and what army?”

            “Only the two of us,” Wing said. “I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”

            The ‘con looked him over openly. “I don’t think that’s gonna happen, but feel free to try and persuade me, prettybot.”

            “I have your permission to come aboard, then?”

            “I insist,” the ‘con said, and cut the comm.

            “That was friendly,” Wing said.

            “Yeah, nothing’s friendlier than a bot trying to get under your panel when you’re not even in the same room yet.” The ‘con’s attitude had Drift on edge. Nobody looked at Wing like that. Not if he had anything to say about it.

            Wing’s energy field reached just close enough to brush his, but twitched back, as though he’d just remembered they were feuding. He busied himself bringing the ship into the station’s hangar.

            Drift really wanted a blaster at his side, and frag whatever the Circle of Light said. He didn’t want to follow Wing down to the hold like a grumpy guard dog, to stand around with his hands on his sword hilts while Wing tried to make nice with the ‘cons. He didn’t want to just glare impotently at the mech who came up the ship’s ramp to check them out. More like check Wing out, specifically and obviously.

            “Permission to come aboard,” the mech said, rumbling his engine. “Bring your friend.”

            Drift flashed his fangs in a snarl at the ‘con’s retreating back. “I say we go in hot, take them by surprise.”

            “You agreed to let me talk to them.”

            “Primus, Wing! You don’t have to be so _nice_ to them, they just want to frag you.”

            “That’s starting to sound like a good option,” Wing snapped testily, and then his feet were tapping down the ramp, and Drift could only follow.

            Eleven Decepticons were waiting. Probably the full complement on this station, Drift figured—it wasn’t big, wouldn’t require a large occupying force. The leader was the biggest, though there were a couple other large types, trucks or even tanks, who might be a problem. Two of the ‘cons tried to be sneaky, sliding around behind Drift to cut off their escape towards the ship. Drift turned to regard them coolly, shifting until his back was nearly touching Wing’s. He gave them his best Deadlock grin, and they sneered.

            Ah, good old macho Decepticon standoffs. He’d had to get good at the posturing—he’d usually been the smallest one in any unit. Had to show them early that he wasn’t an easy target. And if he could hold his own against Turmoil, well, these mechs weren’t as big of a challenge. They didn’t know who they were dealing with.

            He didn’t need to look: the leader’s tone dripped sleaze when he talked to Wing.

            “You looked bigger on the comm.” _Yeah? You looked smarter._ “So, the neutrals finally got the bearings to send someone. Tired of starving?”

            “You do realize that what you’re doing is illegal.”

            “And what are we doing, sweetspark?”

            “Piracy.”

            “Allocation of resources,” the ‘con said. “For the war effort. Our soldiers on the front line need the energon more than cowards who hide on a station.”

            “Aren’t _you_ cowards who hide on a station?”

            The Decepticon leaned forward. He had to be three or four heads taller than Wing, who didn’t flinch. “What did you call me?”

            “A coward. You prey on those weaker than yourself.”

            A rustle went around the circle of Decepticons. The mechs Drift was facing glanced at each other, adjusting their grip on their blasters.

            “You’ll sing a different tune once I’ve tried you on for size, prettybot,” the leader said—he was going for menacing, but his subvocs bubbled with fury.

Drift could sympathize. _Yep. He has that effect on people._

            “What do you want?” the ‘con asked.

            “You will stop stealing supplies from the neutrals, and return to Decepticon space.”

            “What do we get out of it?”

            “You leave here with your dignity,” Wing said.

            The con snorted. “And if we say no?”

            “Then you don’t leave here.”

            The ‘con’s anger turned into suppressed laughter. “Let me get this straight: We reach some agreement or you… ha!… you and your friend here… surrounded by a dozen soldiers… are gonna… take us down?!”

            “If we must,” Wing said.

            The big guy burst out laughing and a few of the others grinned, but some looked uneasy. Drift had to hand it to Wing. He’d noticed it himself in Crystal City, those early days especially, before they’d softened up towards each other. He was soft-spoken, polite as could be, but there was steel underneath all that. His posture and subvocs exuded utter confidence, like you’d have to be an idiot to cross him.

            An idiot like this one. The big ‘con’s laughter wound down after a minute and he took a step closer to Wing. Drift’s engine growled.

            “I’m shaking in my boots! Now, _here’s_ how it’s gonna go. Your friend here…” He jerked his head at Drift. “…will fly back to your little station and tell them that instead of sixty percent, we’ll be taking eighty. You, prettybot, will stay here as a little insurance.”

            “No fragging way,” Drift snarled.

            “We decline,” Wing said, at the same time.

            “Then it looks like the negotiations are closed,” the ‘con said, pulling his blaster.

            Drift and Wing exchanged glances.

            “I did try,” Wing said.

            The Decepticons leveled their blasters. At the same moment, Drift and Wing moved, drawing their swords together.

            “I hate to say ‘I told you so,’” Drift said, cutting down his first ‘con, “but I…”

            “ _Yes_ , Drift.”

            Drift grunted as his armor absorbed blaster fire. “‘Let me talk to them,’ you said. Can’t take sides,’ you said—”

            Wing’s blades bit between an attacker’s armor. “I had to try. There are options besides fighting.”

            “Yeah, obviously.”

            “This—” Wing spun away from a wild punch. “—isn’t exactly the best time!”

            Drift found himself next to Wing, facing down the ‘cons’ leader. They attacked in unison: Drift ducked to strike at the midsection, while Wing darted up for the neck. The bigger bot hit the ground, energon spurting from his wounds, as Drift rolled out of the way. Drift turned to keep fighting, but Wing landed beside him and stretched out an arm to stop him. The surviving Decepticons had tossed their blasters to the deck plating and backed away, hands in the air.

            “We’ll go!”

            “Just… just take it easy!”

            Wing shot Drift a satisfied smile. “I told you so.”

 

* * *

 

            The Decepticons took what supplies they needed and fled, leaving the lion’s share with Drift and Wing. They in turn stocked _Wayward Light_ ’s hold, leaving more than enough for the neutrals, who they commed with news of their success.

            “I hope this clears our debt to you,” Wing said.

            “There was never any debt,” Apis said, beaming over the comm screen. “We’ll never forget this. Thank you. Thank you a hundred times.”

            Wing said his goodbyes and deactivated the comm. Then he pulled his legs up and spun slowly in his chair, thoughtful.

            “What?” Drift asked after a minute. Wing’s chair spun slowly to a halt facing the viewports.

            “Just thinking,” Wing said.

            “About…?” Drift prodded after a few seconds.

            Wing stood and moved towards the hold ramp, twitching his fingers for Drift to follow.

            “What is it?” Drift asked again.

            Wing lifted the Sword from his back and rested it against the wall. “It’s time we got back to training.”

            “What, like we ever stopped?”

            “When was the last time we sparred?”

            “It was just…” Drift stopped to think. They had been recuperating, and before that they’d been on the _Vengeance_ , and before that… “Oh.”

            “Oh,” Wing agreed, dropping into a crouch. “We’ve…” He hesitated. “ _I’ve_ ,” he corrected, “gotten complacent. That last fight… and before, with…”

            “Turmoil.”

            “I could have done better. I should have been better. But I was over-confident, and I’ve let it slide.”

            Drift didn’t argue. He knew the feeling. When he’d run with the ‘cons, he’d always pushed himself harder and harder, as if his singlehanded effort could turn the course of the war. Standing still felt too much like going backward.

            So instead he came at Wing in a sudden lunge. As usual, it was like attacking a hologram: Wing seemed to dissolve, pivoting to let Drift’s momentum carry him harmlessly past. Drift tried again and Wing’s hand closed almost gently on his wrist, pulling him around. A hand jabbing towards his optics made Drift flinch, and a foot swept his legs out from under him while he was distracted. He hit the ground with a crash.

            “Seriously, Wing, when’s the last time anyone beat you? I mean, without the cannons and the endless wave of mooks and… you know. Spears.”

            “Last time was… huh.”

            “You have to _think_ about it?! Some ‘deal’ you offered me. ‘Beat me and you walk out of here…!’”

            “I’m never living that down, am I?” Wing helped him up, and took the role of attacker, letting Drift try out the technique Wing had just demonstrated. “The last person to beat me hand-to-hand was Axe, and he was my teacher.” He made an approving sound as Drift turned him. “Don’t forget the hand to the face—and I’ve beaten him since.”

            “And with swords?” Drift asked, trying to sweep out Wing’s legs. Wing rolled and came up ready.

            “His name is Star Saber. Another of the Circle. You probably saw him in the City without realizing… probably for the best.”

            “And you’ve beaten him since too?” Drift guessed, right before the world turned upside-down. This time he managed to roll too.

            “I haven’t fought him since,” Wing admitted.

            “Afraid you’d lose again?” Drift teased. He liked the thought of Wing having wounded pride. It made him less untouchable.

            “At first,” Wing confessed, faintly sheepish. “But when I had trained more, I asked for a rematch.”

            “And?”

            “He turned me down. Apparently I wasn’t worth the effort. We didn’t… get along.”

            “He’s like Dai Atlas?”

            “Would you believe me if I said he’s worse?”

            “I… no. No, I wouldn’t.”

            “Fair enough,” Wing said, and Drift hit the ground again.

            By the time they were done, their fans were roaring on high and Drift ached all over. But it was a surprisingly good feeling: the feeling of having worked to his limit, until he’d absorbed everything he could. Wing tapped him on the shoulder—he was holding out a cube from their stores. They sat side by side, passing it back and forth.

            The silence was less tense than their journey to the Decepticon station, but Drift’s thoughts wandered to the preceding argument. The look on Wing’s face when he’d said…

            “Hey,” he ventured. Wing glanced over. “Back on the Neutral station… I shouldn’t have said those things. I was out of line, and I’m… sorry.”

            Wing looked down into the nearly empty cube, swirling the last of the energon around.

            “You were right,” he said quietly. Drift had already opened his mouth to say more, but he had to reset his audios first.

            “What?”

            “You were right,” Wing repeated. “When I left the city, I thought I knew what I was doing, and what I wanted. But now I understand that the world isn’t as simple as I wanted it to be.” Drift opened his mouth to speak again, but again let Wing continue. “That truth is, I don’t know what I’m doing any more than you. I know I can frustrate you while I figure it out, and I’m sorry.”

            Drift couldn’t think of anything to say, so he only nodded.

            “I can’t keep avoiding the war,” Wing said. “I’ve been running since the start, but I can’t run any more. I can’t take sides, but what I _can_ do is help those caught in the crossfire, if you’ll help me.”

            “Finding a middle road,” Drift said. “That’s just like you.”

            A trace of the same half-panic, half-confusion flitted across Wing’s face, but before he could get any more of the wrong impression, Drift said, “Yes. Of course I’ll help. You said my path was your path, well… yours is the only one I’ve got. So. Together.”

            “Together,” Wing said. He raised the cube, drinking half of what was left without breaking eye contact before passing it ceremoniously to Drift to finish off. It felt like sealing a promise.

            Maybe it _was_ only a matter of time before Wing would be gone, like everyone else. But Drift wouldn’t give up on this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I'll even give you a [bonus scene](http://full-autopsy.tumblr.com/post/108626118747/wayward-light-deleted-scene). For being so patient.


	15. What You Are In The Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes face the past and choose a future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand we're back, post-timeskip!

            It had to be the fifth or sixth seediest bar in the known universe. Not that that was surprising—the two cloaked figures had been on an extended tour of all the dark and desperate corners of the galaxy.

           “These will get you in,” their contact said, passing over two chips. “But only as far as the platform. After that, you’re on your own.”

            “It’s more than enough. Thank you.”

            The contact snorted; her two hulking bodyguards never changed their wooden, slightly stupid expressions. “I’ve already got your money. I don’t need your thanks.”

            The two turned as one, but the alien stopped them.

            “That ship is Cybertronian.”

            “That’s right.”

            “Cybertronians,” one of her brutes grunted. He spat derisively on the ground. “Death to the lot.”

            “Keep your voice down!” she hissed, her red eyes flashing here and there as though murderous robots might be hiding under every table.

            “But you hate them as much as anyone—”

            “Decepticons,” the taller of the wrapped figures said quietly.

            “What’s the difference?” the brute said, about to spit again to show how much he cared about factional divisions, but he looked at his mistress and thought better of it.

            “Yes, it’s a Decepticon cruiser,” the matriarch said. “They don’t usually dock here, but they’re damaged. And…” She held out a four-fingered hand with a sly smile. The first figure dug out a credit chip and dropped it into her waiting palm. She closed her fingers around the money. “Apparently they’ve got prisoners.”

            “Autobots?” one of the brutes said.

            “Who else?”

            The smaller of the two figures shifted, the gold glow of his eyes tilting towards his companion, but he said nothing.

            “A word of advice,” the matriarch said. “I don’t know your business with them, but you should walk away while you can. The machines are a plague. They destroy everything they touch, everywhere they go. The rest of us are smart enough to leave them alone.”

            “We appreciate your concern,” the smaller figure said. He tipped his head towards the door and both turned again to leave.

            “Concern?” she snorted, reaching out to stop them. “I told you, you pay w—”

            She jerked her hand away from the brown cloth, as though burned. Her shock lasted a moment before turning to anger and disgust.

            “You… you’re like _them_.”

            Her bodyguards cracked their knuckles and flexed their muscles, but the two were already leaving. The small one paused and inclined his head.

            “Again, thank you.”

            Then they were gone.

 

* * *

 

            He kept it in all the way up to the lift, but as the alien lettering of the floor numbers flicked past on the screen, he finally spoke.

            “Something you’d like to tell me, Drift? Or should I just follow you and look pretty?”

            “So they’re Decepticons,” Drift said, tugging on the thick cloth wrapped around his face. “We knew that.”

            “ _You_ knew. You weren’t exactly keeping me updated on the details. I didn’t want to say anything on Antar and I won’t even _mention_ Theturis…”

            “Too late.”

            “…but you can’t expect me not to notice that our last four interventions were against Decepticon targets.”

            “Because they were oppressing others. It was inside our parameters. Which I agreed to.”

            “We help neutrals. We help innocents. But this?”

            “We’re just here to free the prisoners, Wing.”

            “Prisoners of war! You promised we wouldn’t get involved, but the way we’re going, we might as well put Autobot brands on our chests!”

            “We’re inside our parameters,” Drift said as the lift slowed to a halt at the topmost platform. “You agreed that violations of the Tyrest Accord counted.” They exited the lift and stopped just before the doors to the platform. By now Drift was obviously agitated, with the way his EM field was lashing out. “I know this ‘con, all right? I know how he treats his prisoners.” He hesitated, avoiding Wing’s eyes. “And so do you.”

            Wing froze. His hand drifted slowly towards his hardline ports. “The _Vengeance_?” he breathed. “Turmoil.”

            “You don’t have to come with me. I won’t blame you. I’ll understand if you never want to set foot on that ship again.”

            “I’m coming, Drift. But…”

            “I know, I know.” He flawlessly imitated Wing’s harmonics. “‘A knight doesn’t seek revenge, it’s a virus.’ This is about the prisoners.”

            “Is it?” Wing reached out when Drift hesitated, gloved fingers brushing the fabric on Drift’s arm. “The truth, Drift.”

           Drift looked down. “I need closure. I… I can’t ever move on until I face who I was. I have to put this to rest. Today.”

            After a long silence, Wing nodded. “I understand.”

            He squeezed Drift’s arm and dropped his hand. “What’s our plan?”

            “There’s an access hatch on top of the ship. If you can get us up there, I can get us in. If we’re quick and quiet, we can get to the prisoners before anyone knows we’re there.

            “I’ll get us up there,” Wing said, pulling on the ropes that secured his disguise. The fabric would only clog his nacelles, and the time for disguise was over in any case. Drift cast aside his own garments. Wing settled the Sword on his back and moved behind Drift, who slid their illegal chip into the control slot.

            “Ready?”

            “Ready.”

            Drift keyed the platform door open. Wing wrapped his arms securely around Drift’s middle and fired up his engines. Even in the sudden shift from shadowy hallway to brilliant sunlight, Wing’s aim was true: they spiraled up to the top of the ship and down into a smooth rolling landing, hopefully too quick for any Decepticons to spot them on camera or sensors. Drift located the hatch and keyed his way through the triple security locks with impressive ease.

            “You can always count on Turmoil’s arrogance,” he said. “Let’s go.”

            They dropped lightly into the ship and the hatch closed above them, sealing them into the _Vengeance_. Drift reached out with his EM field. Wing’s shoulder brushed his for comfort. Like twin shadows, they set off into the darkness.

 

* * *

 

            The _Vengeance_ was the last place Wing had ever hoped to find himself again. He had barely escaped here with his life once—Drift, twice. Yet here he was, moving silently down the dark halls.

            It was probably his imagination, the way his chest had started to ache. Psychosomatic or not, he wouldn’t let it distract him. He had to be here for Drift, to protect him.

            But that was all he could do. Wing had said what Drift needed to hear, but whatever choice Drift made on this ship, he would make it alone. Wing couldn’t interfere.

            Voices ahead. He and Drift moved soundlessly to the end of the hall. Drift signaled him to hang back as he glanced cautiously around the corner. He flashed Wing one of the hand signals they had developed to prevent other Cybertronians from catching their comm traces. _Five ‘cons._

            Doable, but tricky if they wanted to keep this a stealth mission. If even one escaped to sound the alarm…

            They exchanged _ready_ signals and reached for their weapons as one.

            _Three_ , Drift signed, _two, one…_

            And an explosion rocked the deck under their feet. The noise shorted Wing’s audios for a moment as fire and chunks of the hull—and the five Decepticons—blew past their corner.

            “The frag?!” Drift burst out over the blare of klaxons as they looked around the corner. Five Autobots hurtled through the hull breach, guns blazing at the ‘cons charging down the hallway to meet them.

            “Wreckers,” Drift said in the few seconds they had left. “So much for quiet.

            “Behind,” Wing warned as more Decepticons appeared at the end of their hallway.

            From there it was confusion. Not the first time one of their interventions had ended in mayhem, by a long shot. They had practice. By now they were a seamless unit: four swords spinning in tandem, Wing guarding Drift’s back and the other way around, the occasional shout to focus in one direction or another.

            The Autobots complicated things, but at least they weren’t shooting at Wing or Drift, and they helped clear out the last few targets.

            “We had that covered,” Drift said quietly as he pulled a sword free of his last opponent. The hall was empty of Decepticons. Suspiciously empty. Before Wing could voice his concern, one of the Autobots—grounder, dull green, and, bizarrely, chewing on an antiquated cygar—called out to them.

            “You! What are you doin’ here?”

            The other Autobots were still holding their blasters, but Drift sheathed his swords in a show of peace.

            “We _were_ trying to sneak in,” he said.

            “Yeah, we don’t really do ‘sneak.’ What—”

            The green bot was interrupted by a tall red one, who leaned intimately close to examine both of them. “This is _extraordinary_. Extensive damage to the chest area, repaired twice, once with decidedly substandard equipment, but the matrices in these base metals are remarkably high quality, the like I haven’t seen since before the war—and you, you’ve been upgraded recently—I haven’t seen a configuration like this in centuries, yet it’s perfectly tailored to your basic protoform—whose work is this?”

            “You can tell that just by looking?” Drift asked, inching away from the close examination.

            “You don’t know the half of it,” the leader said. “We gotta move. You two are with us. When this is over, we need to talk.” His shrewd blue optics lingered on the neat points of Drift’s helm and the Sword visible over Wing’s shoulder. The old Autobot seemed to know more about where they came from than he let on. “Springer, take point. Twin Twist, rearguard—”

            “Actually, I should take the lead,” Drift said. The old bot chomped hard on his cygar, not used to being interrupted, nor having his orders questioned. Wing stepped in to smooth it over, as usual.

            “We’re all here for the same reason,” he said.

            “And I can lead you straight to them,” Drift finished.

            For a moment Wing thought the Autobots might object. The tall green one looked like he wanted to argue, but the leader grunted in assent.

            It was simpler with just the two of them, Wing lamented as they sprinted through the halls. Then they wouldn’t be racing to reach the prisoners before Turmoil sprang whatever trap he was preparing. And he didn’t like the way the old bot was looking at Peerless, making the Sword prickle defensively.

            Of course, Crystal City wasn’t technically a secret any more, after Dai Atlas raised it from underground, but they had both agreed not to speak about it to others. There was no need to tempt either side to send an invasion force, however well-equipped the knights were to repel it. Bad enough that the bounty hunter, Lockdown, would sell the coordinates to anyone with enough shanix.

            Wing’s misgivings grew when they reached the brig virtually unopposed, except a few guards easily dispatched by the Autobots. Even the reunion of the Autobots with their comrades didn’t set him at ease. He drew close to Drift.

            “We should go,” he murmured, despite his Spark telling him that a knight always completed his mission.

            “I have to see this through,” Drift answered.

            “They’re here,” the tall red mech—Perceptor, they called him—said from the door, where he was occupied with the console. “It appears they are attempting to break through my locks.”

            “Hold ‘em off long enough for us to cut through the other wall,” the leader, Kup, told him.

            “Bad place for a fight,” Wing said. Just as Drift had picked up Wing’s rhythms in battle, Wing had gleaned some of Drift’s tactical knowledge. The brig had only one entrance, and it was full of Decepticons. They stood little chance of fighting their way out through there. They would be bottled up in here until the others broke through the wall.

            Wing’s fragmented thoughts and Perceptor’s nervous babble were cut off by the blast of a familiar cannon. At least a dozen Decepticons were piling through the door, but for Wing, only one stood out: the hulking black shape from his nightmares—the cold blue biolights—the deep rumbling voice that reached into his chest and squeezed his Spark— _oh, little one, do you fear death?_ —and for an instant, he was frozen in place as the shooting started.

            Only an instant. Drift’s shout broke him from his trance.

            “Wing! Right!”

            He snapped out of it. Several of the prisoners were unarmed, under _his_ protection. Drift was already charging to his left. Wing moved towards the right, a beat behind, closing the distance to let his swords do their work. Kup shouted at them to return. Shots from both front and back narrowly missed him and Wing saw their error: he and Drift would be in the line of fire.

            Life was simpler on their own!

            But Drift ignored the call, still charging—for the still body of Perceptor at the ‘cons’ feet? Or for Turmoil, blind to all else?

            A second blast from the cannon threw Drift down.

            “ _You_ ,” Turmoil snarled. For a moment there was stillness. Then the Autobots fired again and Wing streaked across the room, thrusters carrying him low to the ground. He seized Drift out of the way as Turmoil smashed a massive foot where he’d just been.

            “Deadlock!” Turmoil roared as Wing dropped Drift to roll to his feet. The cannon whined once more and a flash of blue missed Wing by inches, but clipped Kup as it passed to impact on the back wall. Kup went spinning and smashed into Drift, and the two of them toppled through the new back door and out of sight.

            “Drift!” Wing cried, darting to the hole, but his Circle instincts held him back. His place was here, finishing the mission. Drift knew the ship, and he wasn’t alone… he would be fine.

            He had to be fine.

            The fight had become close-range enough for Wing to use his swords. Peerless whispered guidance in his Spark as he carved his way through what seemed an endless flood of Decepticons.

            The Sword screamed a warning and he dove to one side, leaving his unfortunate enemy to take the full brunt of the cannon blast. Wing rolled into a crouch facing Turmoil.

            “Well, little warrior, you fight as well as ever,” Turmoil said above him. “You took my voice when we last fought, but had no courage to finish the job. Come, are you braver now, or will I finish what _I_ started?”

            “Killing doesn’t require courage,” Wing said. “Even _you_ can do it.”

            He darted to one side as Turmoil’s huge fist swung at him. For a moment, fear surged inside him at the cruel glow of the familiar visor. But this time he wasn’t bound and helpless. This time he had Peerless’s reassuring weight at his back, and his fear ebbed away, leaving him serene in the middle of the battle.

            _Chaos, yet harmony_.

            Turmoil was not some nightmare phantom: he was a mech. He was large, and slow. The cannon arm limited his dexterity. His anger made him irrational.

            He hovered at Turmoil’s head height long enough to goad the tank into sweeping his cannon arm backhand, trying to swat him out of the air. He took advantage of the opening and sliced both of his blades into Turmoil’s side. The Decepticon roared and tried to punch him, but Wing ducked out of reach. As he went, he spotted the hole in the back wall and glanced over his shoulder to see the Autobot Twin Twist still trying to drill through a cell bank. He hovered again.

            “So Deadlock was right about you,” he said, with a silent apology to Drift for using the name he hated. “You can’t even kill me properly, you waste your time on petty revenge… Deadlock was twice the Decepticon you are.”

            Turmoil roared and leveled his cannon. Wing stared death coolly in the face as the blue glow brightened—he wasn’t afraid.

            Wing dodged away just as the cannon went off. Twin Twist’s spotter yanked him out of the way and Turmoil’s cannon blast punched through the wall like foil.

            “Move!” the tall green bot shouted.

            “Stop them!” Turmoil ordered, but the Autobots were escaping. Wing found himself next to the green bot as a rearguard, backing towards the hole.

            “Nice thinking,” the green bot said, “for a Neutral.”

            “I can get us out of here,” Wing said. He still had the blueprints Drift had transferred to him last time. He ached to look for Drift, but his charge came first: get these people out.

 

* * *

 

            So, apparently being thrown through a wall and falling several decks _hurt_. Drift groaned, groping automatically for his swords. One was within reach. He wrapped his fingers around it, painfully. Then he heaved himself to his knees to check the situation.

            It was a deserted cargo hold. The old bot, Kup, was the only one here. They picked themselves up.

            “So,” the Autobot said. “Deadlock.”

            “That’s not who I am anymore.”

            “Convenient,” Kup grunted, “considering Deadlock slaughtered a lot of good Autobots.”

            Drift had nothing to say to that. He tucked his swords into their sheaths, under the bot’s watchful eye.

            “Long time ago,” Kup said, “way back at the start of the war, there was a big group—not Autobot, not Decepticon—that refused to take sides in the war, and they left. No one’s sure what happened to them. Some think they died. Some think they hid. Most don’t care… too busy with all the killing.”

            Drift said nothing. Kup puffed on his cygar.

            “I’m thinking from the looks of you and your friend up there… you know different. Found ‘em, didn’t you.”

            Drift hesitated. He and Wing had an agreement not to bring up the Circle if they didn’t have to. But this old bot seemed to already know. And Drift, an expert, couldn’t sense any duplicity. The Autobot was straightforward, blunt. Not the type for tricks.

            “Yes,” he admitted carefully.

            “That have anything to do with Deadlock’s vanishing act?”

            “Everything.”

            “All that killing, and you’re after a second chance. I know a thing or two about that.” Kup adjusted his shoulder, rotating it until it popped. “That bot you tried to save? Perceptor? He’s not supposed to be in combat. He was only here to look out for me. Designed this new body so I could be my old self again. Better than. And he… well. You tried to save him. You didn’t owe him anything, but you tried.”

            Drift looked away. He’d been going for Turmoil. Going for Turmoil when there was an injured mech right next to him.

            “Anyway,” Kup said, dusting off his hands and pulling out his blaster. “We better get a move on if we’re gonna catch up to the others.”

            “Wait,” Drift said. Kup turned. “I’m no Autobot. I don’t know who or what I am. You’ve got no reason to trust me. But how would you like to bring this whole place down?”

            Kup raised an optic ridge. “I’m listenin’.”

 

* * *

 

            Drift handled the doors and Kup handled the guards. Louder than Drift was used to nowadays, with Wing at his back. It was a wonder Kup’s shooting didn’t bring the whole ship down on them by the time they hit the main reactor. Probably they were distracted by the others. Drift hoped Wing was all right.

            “Almost done,” he told Kup, his fingers flying across the reactor console. “I’ve programmed the ship to go into orbit. Somewhere in the atmosphere, the reactor overload should tear the ship apart.”

            “You know an awful lot about this place.”

            “I served under Turmoil, second-in-command.”

            He felt the tingle of an encrypted communication at the edge of his EM field.

            “The others made it,” Kup said, for his benefit. “Nine Autobots and your friend. Springer’s ready to scoop us up if we jump from here.”

            He patted the open hatch beside him.

            “Nine?” Drift asked. Besides Kup, there should have been ten Autobots.

            “Perceptor,” Kup said. His gruff voice softened. “They couldn’t get to him. Poor kid—he wasn’t supposed to be in this fight.”

            Drift disconnected from the console. “It’s set. We have to be—”

            Before he finished, the door exploded, scattering bits of metal. Turmoil squeezed through his new entrance.

            “Go,” Drift shouted at Kup, who was already drawing his gun. “I’ll handle this. Go!”

            He shoved the old bot out of the way of a second cannon blast. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kup drop from the hatch. Hopefully this Springer was as good as Kup said.

            He rolled to his feet, half behind the reactor.

            “Stop blowing holes in our ship, Turmoil!”

            “I’m only cleaning out the vermin,” Turmoil said. “I thought you’d scurried away again, Deadlock. I thought I’d been robbed of this pleasure.”

            “I’m not Deadlock.” Drift dodged to new cover. With Turmoil feeling trigger-happy, he was likely to hit the reactor and blow them prematurely sky-high. He could feel the engines carrying them up from the planet, but at this height, the blast would still catch the port. “My name is Drift.”

            “What’s the difference?” Turmoil asked, firing again. Drift ducked just out of the way. The shot sizzled through his EM field. “You can change your name, but not what you are. You killed for us, now you kill for them. You’re pathetic.”

            Drift wasn’t fast enough—Turmoil’s next shot grazed his side, knocking off one of his sheaths and making him stagger, but his momentum kept him going. For a moment the cannon was charging in his face, but then Drift was too close inside his range. He slashed Turmoil’s arm to the side. The cannon discharged into the ceiling.

            Drift’s knee slammed into the twin wounds on Turmoil’s side, making the tank stagger back with a roar.

            _That one’s for Wing—and this is for me!_

            With strength born of hate, he drove both swords deep into Turmoil’s shoulders, burying them in clear to the hilt and pinning Turmoil to the wall behind him. Hot energon spurted ono his hands and chest.

            “We’re doing this the wrong way! _All_ of us!” he snarled. “Millions of years of war and where are we? A dying species! The Autobots are a _step_ away from what we were at the start. And _we_ —the Decepticons have become something _worse_ than what we fought against!”

            Turmoil snorted derisively. He wasn’t even struggling, just standing quietly with his back to the wall.

            “And who are you to judge us? A traitor? A broken outcast trying to be something he’s not? They’ll never accept you.”

            Drift’s hands clenched on his swords. One wrench sideways, and he could silence that voice forever. Except it would still be in his Spark, mocking him.

            Turmoil saw it in his eyes.

            “Do it,” he taunted. “Kill me and run—like the gutter trash you’ve always been.”  
            Drift’s hand twitched.

            _Do it_ , Deadlock urged from the darkest part of his Spark. _Finish him off. You’re alone in the dark… who would ever know?_

            “It’s what you came here to do,” Turmoil said.

            It was the truth. No matter what he’d told Wing, he’d come to the _Vengeance_ for one reason only. And here it was, right in front of him. All he had to do was take it. One slash and… and…

            _You tried to save him. You didn’t owe him anything, but you tried._

            A second chance. A second chance to make the right choice.

            _Who would know?_ Deadlock asked.

            _I’d know_ , Drift answered.

            He stepped back.

            “I know what I came here to do.”

            The reactor started to crackle as a low hum, unnoticed during the fight, grew to a whine. Drift left Turmoil pinned and ran, against every Decepticon fiber of his being. Not towards the hatch and safety, but towards the ruined door and redemption.

 

* * *

 

            It took every ounce of Wing’s strength not to go back for Drift when Kup appeared, alone, and told them the situation.

            “He’ll be here,” Kup said, yanking him back from the open hatch.

            “I have to go back for him!”

            “The ship’s about to blow, kid! There’s no time. Just trust him.”

            The little Autobot shuttle circled below the rising cruiser. Wing’s whole frame quivered with tension as he watched, searching desperately for a falling Drift.

            “He’s taking too long,” he burst out. “Something’s gone wrong. I’m going after him.”

            “Wait—!”

            As Kup struggled to hold him back, the _Vengeance_ erupted into a fireball. Wing’s Spark turned to ice.

            _No. No no no no no…_

            “Primus,” Kup said. “Kid, I’m so…”

            “Look!” another of the Autobots shouted, peering through a viewfinder. “Two o’clock!”

            “Drift!”

            Wing streaked from the hatch towards the falling bots—two— _Drift_. He adjusted, dove, caught Drift from behind. The weight of both bots dragged him down until he fired his engines to maximum, turning their freefall into a controlled dive straight into the shuttle’s open docking ramp.

            It wasn’t his best landing, but Wing barely felt it. As the injured Autobot tumbled onto the floor, the others rushed to pick him up and take him for medical attention, but Wing saw only Drift, in his arms. He smothered him with kisses.

            “Don’t… you… _ever_ … do… that… again!” he berated between each one.

            “I knew you’d catch me,” Drift rasped, clearing smoke from his vents.

            “Turmoil?” Wing asked when he had satisfied himself that Drift would be fine.

            “Alive, last I saw him. Maybe he made it, maybe not.” Drift looked up to see the injured Autobot whisked away. “I had something more important to do.”

            Wing took Drift’s face between his hands and kissed him again, and this time he didn’t let go until someone nearby coughed for attention. He and Drift picked themselves up to face Kup, somehow still chewing on his cygar.

            “That was good work up there. Both of you.” His eyes lingered on the Sword. “Wish I had twenty like you. We’d get this war finished in a week.”

            He pulled the cygar from his mouth. “I’ll be straight with you. I’m forming a new unit. I want you on it.”

            Wing drew back, the negative already forming on his lips, but Drift’s field was suddenly awash with interest.

            “What do you say? Willing to wear the badge?”

            “Kup,” Springer muttered sharply.

            “Drift,” Wing hissed at the same time.

            But Drift was already reaching out to shake Kup’s offered hand. “Of course.”

            “Kup!” Springer said again.

            “Drift, can we _talk_ for a moment?” Wing murmured. He pulled Drift towards the hatch, where the wind kept the others from hearing, while Springer and Kup held an intense whispered debate.

            “What are you _doing_?” he breathed.

            “Look, Wing… I want to make a difference.”

            “We already _do_.”

            “I want to end the war. I always have,” Drift said. “I could help them. I could _belong_ here.”

            Wing had rarely seen Drift so passionate about something. There was so much need in his subvocs… hungry for the camaraderie he’d tasted today.

            Life was simpler with just the two of them.

            “Drift,” he whispered. “Do you understand what you’re asking?”

            Drift dropped his gaze. He knew Wing had sworn never to take up a faction. What would he do—what would either of them do, forced to choose between their beliefs and each other?

            “Yes.”

            Wing sighed. He turned to where Kup was waiting for an answer; Springer had lost the argument and retreated.

            “I’ll fight with Drift,” Wing said. Kup started to say something, but Wing wasn’t done. “But I won’t wear your badge.”

            Kup hesitated. His mouth twisted around the cygar.

            After a moment, Drift stepped up beside him, the back of his hand brushing Wing’s. “If Wing goes, I go,” he said. Wing wound their fingers together and squeezed.

            “Fine,” Kup said, offering his hand. “Welcome aboard. Let’s go pick up your ship.”


	16. The New Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes, well, do pretty much nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And ~six weeks of breakdowns and blocks and utter despair later, I say "ah screw it" and beat my head against the wall until I have almost 2000 words for you. in... six weeks. that is a new low.

            Drift had been on Autobot cruisers before, once or twice, but there had been a lot more running and shooting involved. At least this one wasn’t called “Ark 237” or something. At least some Autobots had a _little_ imagination.

            He should probably stop thinking about them like that, now.

            He glanced at his shoulder. There it was, all shiny and fresh and forbidding: his new insignia. If Deadlock saw him now, he’d shoot himself. And guttermech Drift? What would he think of this mech, with the blue optics and high-quality armor and the red face stamped on his shoulder?

            He’d be afraid. That red face meant security forces, blasters, and beatings. It meant corruption. The blue optics meant higher castes. They meant _don’t even look at me, I can make your life worse with a word._ They meant—

            _Waking up on a circuit slab, warm weight on his shoulder, the first friendly touch in years—“You’re special. I can tell.”_

            Drift shook off the old memories. Anyway, the Autobots were more than that now. They were the best hope for Cybertron.

            He and Wing had been given a hab suite to share. Wing was already in there, staring a hole in the weapons rack. He didn’t react to the door opening and closing. Drift waited a beat, then said, “So?”

            Wing looked him up and down. His optics lingered on the new insignia. “So?” he echoed blandly.

            Drift tipped his shoulder forward, showing off. “What do you think?”

            “It doesn’t suit you,” Wing said. He settled his swords into the rack.

            “Is that all?” Drift reached out his EM field, but Wing’s was closed off. “Say what you think, Wing.”

            Wing’s voice was sharper than Drift was used to, his subvocs biting. “What do you want me to say, Drift? Congratulations?”

            “You’re angry with me.”

            “Yes,” Wing said. “A little.”

            “It’s too late,” Drift said. “If I leave now it’s desertion.”

            “Yes, because you’ve never done _that_ before.” Drift flinched, but Wing seemed to realize he’d crossed a line, and rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

            “I thought you’d understand.”

            “I don’t! I thought you were happy, Drift. Was it not enough for you, what we did? Was…” Wing’s pinions flicked, agitated. “Was I not enough?”

            “Of course you were. Are. It’s not that.”

            “So?”

            Drift sighed. He drew his own swords to place in the rack below Wing’s. As he got close, he probed tentatively with his energy field. Wing’s was definitely more confused and hurt than angry.

            “What we did together… it was great, and it meant a lot to me, but…” He gesticulated helplessly. “I _was_ happy. But I always wanted to end the war, Wing. I never kept that a secret from you. I have to end it. I _have_ to. I need to know I’m doing something—making a difference in the war. We can help them here.”

            “We were making a difference,” Wing said quietly.

            “I know. I… I know. But you don’t know these guys, Wing… I’ve heard all kinds of stories… we’ll be on the front lines… this could be what I’ve been looking for.”

            “And then what?” Wing asked. “After everything you told me about the Decepticon cause, and why you believed in it, will an Autobot victory make you happy?”

            “Things are different now. The Decepticons and Autobots are different.”

            “What if you’re wrong? What if it means bringing back everything you hated about the old Cybertron?”

            “Then we go to the Circle,” Drift said. “That’s what it’s for, right? Preserving the good parts of Cybertronian culture? They can help rebuild Cybertron the way it should be… like Crystal City. That’s what _you_ always wanted, isn’t it? Tell the truth, Wing. You never wanted to _wait_ for the war to be over.”

            Wing stared straight into his optics as though searching for something. Drift got the sense that the Great Sword was looking through Wing’s eyes too. The weight of their combined attention pressed down on him, but he held the stare.

            “Tell me you’re unhappy here, and we’ll go,” Drift said. “But I want this, Wing. And I hoped you’d be willing to try, for me.”

            “I meant what I told them,” Wing said finally. “I’m no Autobot. But I’ll fight with you, Drift.”

            Drift’s Spark pulsed with relief and gratitude. He would face a life in exile if he just had Wing at his side, but to have Wing here, willing to stay with him… believing in him…

            Wing offered a tiny smile, which Drift took as a sign of forgiveness and apology for the argument. Drift stepped into him, leaning down to kiss him.

            “I _am_ proud of you,” Wing murmured between kisses. “I didn’t have the chance to tell you earlier. What you did on the _Vengeance_ …”

            “I went and checked on that bot,” Drift said. “Perceptor. They said he’ll be okay, eventually. And you! I heard you went toe-to-toe with Turmoil.”

            Wing smiled. “You were right about closure. It’s not always the same as revenge.”

            Wing’s hand brushed down his arm. For a moment Drift was still too caught up in relief to notice that Wing’s fingers were resting over his hardline ports. Drift broke their latest kiss to look at him seriously.

            “Are you sure?” he asked. “Turmoil…”

            “…is out of our lives for good,” Wing said. “You told me that you wanted closure… so do I. I can’t let him rule me forever.”

            They sat on the berth, facing each other—better that than falling over when the feedback was too intense. Drift opened his arm panel. It took Wing longer, but after a long moment, he bared his ports.

            “If you’re sure,” Drift said. “Don’t force yourself. What he put you through… you don’t have to do this, and I won’t blame you.”

            “I want to,” Wing said stubbornly.

            “I don’t have a lot of good memories to choose from,” Drift admitted. “What if… what if it’s…”

            What if he just made things worse? What if he accidentally showed Wing more of Deadlock’s crimes, or a guttermech’s desperation for survival? The cravings for Syk that still crawled through Drift’s lines some mornings? The pleasure he had once taken in killing? There were so many shadows inside him, and he wanted Wing—bright and beautiful Wing—as far away from that as possible.

            Wing kissed him. “I’m stronger now, Drift. If it’s yours… I want to know. I want to share your burdens.”

            His long fingers unspooled a cable from his arm panel and hesitated over Drift’s. Drift gave an abrupt nod and stumbled to follow suit, fumbling with his own cabling. Wing’s hand shook as he tried to plug them in; despite his brave words, his EM field was awash with anxiety and lingering pain. Drift gently took the cable from his hand and plugged in. It was up to him to make the first move.

            Filesharing wasn’t always an exact science, and Drift was out of practice. It had been a long time since he’d trusted someone enough to share something this intimate. He scanned his memory for something he could show Wing, shying away from his long stretch as Deadlock. Here were memories of Cybertron… he’d always thought that Wing would like Gasket, but all those memories were laced with pain. Still, maybe something…

            Maybe it was everything that had happened today that dragged this particular memory to the forefront. The blue optics, his urge to find another path, took him back to another time: another moment when a new road had been offered to him, but he’d turned away.

            _He is young. So young, so scared, and he aches—his processor is fuzzy in the wake of circuit boosters. But he is alive, and surprised to be that way. Rodion—the Dead End—a clinic. A bot leaning over him. Blue optics, red and white plating, medic symbols painted on his arms._

_“Listen to me, kid,” he says (this memory is as crisp and clear as the day itself, the medic’s voice exactly as it always was… this is a memory that has never faded. Not for him). “I saved your life today. What happens next is up to you. Get a paint ‘n’ polish and visit the Functionists downtown—see if they can match you up to a job. You’re_ special _. I can tell. Now get out there and prove me right.”_

_The first person who ever looked him in the eye, and touched him without hurting him (he can still feel the echoes of those hands on his shoulders, no matter how many frame upgrades he goes through), and the first person who ever believed he could be something more. He’s confused. Baffled. Lost. Disbelieving. Stunned. And deep down in his Spark, there’s a warmth that he’s never felt in his life—someone believes in him._

            He felt Wing’s eyes on him, pulling him reluctantly from that moment.

            “I bet he said that to all the addicts,” he muttered evasively, trying to play it off as a guttermech’s fantasy, a bad romance vid, some high-caste doctor sweeping him off the street. Like he was stupid to want more of that faith.

            “I don’t think so,” Wing said quietly.

            “I proved him wrong anyway. Went right back to the streets, and the boosters. Don’t know what he saw in me.”

            “Come here,” Wing whispered, and Drift slid back into their link.

            Wing’s mind felt different than his—brighter, more organized, more disciplined. Must be all that meditation. But there were shadows in the corners. Drift nudged blindly towards them—what shadows could Wing have?—but Wing had something else for him.

            _Nighttime on Theophany. He’d forgotten how beautiful the stars are. He could stand here and stare at them all night—but he can’t squander this opportunity. He may not get another chance. Dai Atlas will challenge his place in the Circle for this, and if he is judged unworthy, he might never get near the surface again. He has work to do._

_The slavers’ outpost is below. He knows it well by now—he’s come so often to scout and plan, his Spark breaking more each time he must leave the slaves and return to the city by daybreak. Not this time. Not tonight. Tonight he acts, alone if he must._

_But tonight, there is a stranger. A… a Cybertronian. Not from the City! His Spark flares wildly in shock and the Sword reaches out to calm him._

_Another Cybertronian, here. A scout? A wanderer?_

_A miracle._

_He is no longer alone._

            “You don’t know what he saw in you?” Wing whispered, resting their helms together. “The same I saw that night.”

_There’s something about the stranger. Beneath the anger, there is strength—the need for a purpose—yearning for something more—searching for something._

            Wing’s lips brushed his, light as a breeze. “You are so much stronger than you think you are, Drift. Someday you’ll see it too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...........


	17. Keep On Laughing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes show off. And... do some other fun things, too.

            The insistent beeping of Drift’s new communicator roused him from dreams where the Rodion medic’s words echoed around and around his head until he almost believed them. He extracted an arm from a warm tangle of limbs and cast about blindly until he found the device.

            Wing made a sleepy, disgruntled noise, tucking his face closer into Drift’s neck and burrowing a little deeper into their mingled body heat as Drift read the message. Little puffs of air from his vents got under Drift’s plating and made him squirm, but Wing just wrapped a little tighter around him.

            “Whatsit?” Wing muttered, his optics flicking dimly online.

            “Orders,” Drift said. “We’d better get used to being on someone else’s schedule again.”

            Wing muttered something into Drift’s neck. Drift couldn’t quite make it out, but it sounded dire. They’d lived on no schedule but their own for a long, long time on _Wayward Light_ : recharging when they felt like it, staying in one berth or the other as long as they pleased. Adjusting back to an actual shift cycle might be tough.

            Wing finally disentangled himself, letting both of them sit up. “What orders?”

           “It’s Kup,” Drift said. “Wants me to report to their training room. Probably they want to know what I can do. Get this, he ‘requests’ that you come too.”

            “Requests?”

            “Not like he can technically order you,” Drift said. He got up and filled two cubes at the energon dispenser.

            “I wonder what he’d do if I said no,” Wing mused. He accepted a cube. “But I won’t test him today.”

            “Appreciate it.”

            Wing gave him a smile over his cube. He had to know how badly Drift wanted them—both of them—to make a good impression. He wanted to start this next part of his— _their_ —journey on the right foot.

            They finished refueling and headed deeper into the ship, following markings on the walls and the schematic that Kup had ordered a grudging, still suspicious Springer to give them. When they arrived in the training room, Drift and Wing shot each other suppressed smiles. Drift knew they were thinking the same thing: it was a lot bigger than _Wayward Light_ ’s hold.

            The Autobots not in the medbay were here, lingering around the edges of the floor. Probably not ordered to be here. They’d come to get the measure of Drift and Wing.

            “There you are,” Kup said, even though they were on time. He glanced at Wing; his cygar shifted from one corner of his mouth to the other. “Glad you could join us.”

            Wing gave him his politest Circle smile and said nothing.

            “All fueled? Good.” Kup jerked a thumb a the sparring floor. “So you saw some action on the ‘con cruiser, but there wasn’t a lot of time to watch. I want to see what you’ve got, where I can use you.”

            “Stands to reason,” Drift said. After a few seconds he caught himself. “Sir.”

            Kup’s mouth twitched upward. “So who’s first?”

            Wing spoke before Drift had time to think. “Drift.”

            Drift felt a moment’s panic as he whipped his head around to stare at the jet. _Who, me?!_ Making a fool of himself against the best the Autobots had to offer? Deadlock would have faced down the Wreckers with a grin on his face, gun in each hand, and a full platoon behind him, but like this, even one on one? He’d never even beaten Wing in a fight!

            Wing looked at him sidelong, optics bright and innocent. He gave Drift a little smile and tilted his head towards the sparring floor.

            Kup wasn’t watching the silent exchange. He was looking between the Autobots nearest them.

            “Let’s see how you do against someone your own size,” he said. “Blurr, you’re up. No weapons. Just metal and grease.”

            Drift unhooked his scabbards and laid them carefully at the delineated edge of the arena. He cast Wing one last betrayed glance—Wing responded with an enigmatic smile—before facing his opponent. The other bot had streamlined blue plating and a backswept antenna on the top of his head. He’d been one of the prisoners they’d freed from the _Vengeance_ , but he looked none the worse for his captivity.

            “Better go slow with him, Blurr,” Springer said. “We want him to have a _little_ chance.”

            Anger rippled through Drift’s Spark. So _that’s_ how they wanted this to go. He wasn’t about to take that lying down. Not with Wing watching.

            He let go of the anger, like Wing had taught him. Probably the first thing Wing had _ever_ taught him, way back in Crystal City, when Drift had wanted to tear him limb from limb. _A knight never attacks in anger. Anger gets you killed._

            With that in mind, Drift waited for Blurr to make the first move. He almost didn’t see it when it came. The Autobot was _quick_! But he’d honed his instincts training with Wing, and his body knew how to block it. The Autobot kept coming, taking advantage of his superior speed.

            Drift couldn’t get anywhere on the defensive. Sooner or later he’d be too slow. He needed to turn this around.

            The Autobot had the cheek to grin at him, and in his distraction or arrogance he came a little slower. Compared to his movements before, this seemed exaggeratedly slow. Drift didn’t even try to block; instead he sidestepped, letting the Autobot’s momentum carry him past.

            The snickering from the sidelines stopped.

            Blurr turned, but Drift was already pressing the offensive, keeping Blurr dancing back out of reach, unable to root himself. A few times, the Autobot tried a feint, or managed to take the offensive for a minute. But Drift had found his rhythm, and even when he gave up ground, he still felt in control. He took a blow to his side, turned toward it, and used his leverage to throw the bot over his hip.

            Instead of rolling as Drift expected, Blurr hit the ground on his front with a loud crash. He braced on his hands and came up in a neat spinning move that surprised Drift and almost knocked him off his feet. He yielded a few steps, letting the bot push. An idea sparked in his head. He could never get away with this trick with Wing, who after all had taught it to him and never took the bait, but…

            But Blurr was so eager to get back on the offensive that he pressed forward, optics bright and vents roaring. Drift set him up for it, adjusted his stance, found the balance points on Blurr’s frame, prepared to grab in another step, when his weight was distributed just right…

            “Okay,” Kup called, and Blurr skidded to a halt right as Drift grabbed his wrist. Drift let go, but Blurr offered his other hand, grinning.

            “Nice moves.”

            Drift’s whole frame blazed with heady excitement. Not only had he held his own, but he knew—and maybe Blurr, maybe even Kup—that he’d had the upper hand. He hadn’t expected that.

            He gripped the outstretched hand, returning the exhilarated grin with one of his own. Blurr tugged him forward. Drift expected another attack even after the halt had been called, but Blurr just pulled him right up close so their fronts were pressed together, both sets of fans pumping out heat. The Autobot’s whole frame buzzed. The heat from his vents washed over Drift’s plating as the bot’s EM field surged.

            “Show me some more,” Blurr murmured, his optics alight with mischief. “Later.”

            He gave Drift’s hand a friendly squeeze and pushed back, tipping him a wink.

            Even the unlooked-for advances didn’t dampen Drift’s victory. He returned to Kup, barely suppressing a grin. Kup nodded; even Springer looked impressed. But it was Wing’s smile that made Drift feel lightest.

            “If you can use those swords like you use your hands, you’ll do fine,” Kup said.

            Drift clipped his swords back on. “Thank you, sir.” Wing’s EM field brushed his, edged with pride, and Drift added, “but I’m still learning.”

          “I think we all learned a thing or two,” Kup said. He turned his optics on Wing. “How about another lesson?”

            “I’d be honored,” Wing said, with a slightly more genuine smile. Kup waved at a rack full of dulled practice blades, similar to the ones they’d used in Crystal City.

            “Take your pick. Springer here knows a thing or two about blades.”

            Wing took the Great Sword from his back and offered it to Drift. “Please, will you hold this for me?”

            Drift hesitated. He and the Sword may have come to terms, but it still made him uneasy. But the trust required for a knight of the Circle to leave his Sword in another’s hands humbled him. He held out his hands, palm-up, and Wing pressed the Sword into them.

            In the moment that all three of them were connected, Drift felt Wing’s emotions as clearly as his own. The sheer pride nearly overwhelmed him: Wing’s pride in Drift, and how far he’d come since his first stumbling, snarling efforts in Crystal City.

            Drift was still dazed when Wing let go and took his time carefully choosing his weapons. Wing had told him before that he was improving, but a part of Drift hadn’t believed him. Wing still beat him every time they fought, threw him with impressive regularity. And any time Drift managed to throw _him_ , he’d always felt like Wing had taken pity on him and handed him a little taste of victory.

            Now, though? Now he wondered if it had been Wing allowing him a throw now and then for the sake of his morale… or if he’d actually caught Wing off-balance.

            He’d always seen himself as a novice next to Wing—but now he felt, just for a moment, different. Strong. Competent.

           Wing chose two practice blades with the approximate weight and dimensions as his own live energy weapons. Springer picked a two-handed sword nearly as long as Wing himself. Even seeing the two of them side-by-side on the sparring floor, Drift wasn’t concerned. Size didn’t matter to Wing. Look who he’d learned from, back when he was a novice himself. Axe was bigger than Springer.

            Like Drift, Wing put his guard up and waited politely for his opponent to make the first move. Springer came in with an overhead strike that Wing blocked—not effortlessly, but with confidence.

            Drift didn’t often get to watch Wing fight. Usually he was sparring with Wing and was focused on the center of Wing’s chest to predict his movements. Or they were fighting others, together, and Drift needed his eyes forward. Sometimes Wing practiced a pattern dance on his own for meditation, but that wasn’t much like fighting a real opponent. So Drift hadn’t seen him fight someone else since Crystal City.

            He’d… forgotten. Forgotten what Wing looked like in battle. The way his feet moved, light, quick, but each step carefully placed, ready to root him to the ground or change direction. The swirl of his skirting panels every time he turned. The shift of his arm cables as he twisted.

            And his face. Intense, focused, _alive_. Wing took such pleasure in this. Probably _too_ much for Dai Atlas’s comfort. But Drift couldn’t imagine even Dai Atlas begrudging Wing this much, this one thing he allowed himself to take pride in. Wing was _good_ at this. He turned combat into something beautiful.

            Springer’s big sword wouldn’t mean a thing if he couldn’t land a hit. Wing moved—danced, really—around him like a breeze, blocking what he couldn’t avoid, and using his small size to dart under the Autobot’s guard and score hits. He hadn’t even left the ground. Drift smiled. Wing was going easy.

            Going easy meant that Springer still scored points here and there. Drift kept seeing openings, but Wing didn’t press them. He wondered if Springer or Kup noticed.

            Part of him understood Wing’s reasoning. He didn’t want the Autobots to know everything he could do. He wanted to keep the true extent of his skills hidden… just in case.

            When Kup finally called a halt—if he’d noticed what Wing was doing, he didn’t show it beyond a faint considering glint in his optics—Springer seemed to have worked off his bad temper. He grinned at Wing as he propped himself on his sword, offering a hand for Wing to grasp. They returned to the edge of the room, where Springer even gave Drift an approving nod.

            “I’ve seen enough,” Kup said. “You’ll do. You’ll do just fine.”

            Drift handed Wing his Sword back. This time he felt a wave of Wing’s exhilaration, before his Circle training kicked in and he tried to smother it.

            “You going to teach us some of those moves?” Springer asked. Drift shot his partner a flickering glance.

            “I’ll teach what I can,” Wing said politely.

            Kup’s and Springer’s comms crackled.

            “Sir,” a voice said. “You’re needed on the bridge. You’ve got to hear this.”

            “Copy that, Blaster,” Springer said. “On our way.”

            “Stand by for orders,” Kup told Drift. “This sounds big. Dismissed.”

            They vanished into the hall. The other Autobots in the room began to disperse. Blurr caught Drift’s eye and winked again. Rather than respond, Drift nudged Wing towards the door.

            His systems were still humming from the fight. A lot of ‘cons got revved up in battle or training, and worked it off with a good frag. Apparently the same went for Autobots. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to take Blurr up on the offer.

            He and Wing… well… they’d been on their own for a long time. There just hadn’t been anyone else around to ‘face. He knew Wing used to have lovers in Crystal City; he himself had had a network on the _Vengeance_. Now that they were part of a group, what would happen? Would they branch out, take other partners? What would it mean for their relationship as it now stood?

            They needed to talk, Drift decided, as they reentered their own quarters. Wing drew two fresh cubes to replenish the energy they’d spent sparring. They needed to work this out _now_. They had to decide where they stood.

            “That went well,” Wing said. He smiled and held out his cube in a toast. “I _told_ you you were improving, Drift. Now do you believe me?”

            “I guess I had an okay teacher,” Drift said, clinking their cubes together. They drank deeply.

            Wing grinned, swirling the energon in his cube. “That would have been an _excellent_ throw.” It took Drift a second to remember. Oh… the end of his fight. “A few more seconds and you would have had Blurr on his back.”

            Drift choked. He coughed to clear his intake. Wing was smirking at him, optics mischievous over the rim of his cube.

            “He seemed very… friendly,” Wing said.

            “He, uh. He was.” Drift squirmed in embarrassment. He stalled by taking another drink, but when his cube was empty, he worked up his courage. Wing deserved to know.

            “He wants to interface with me.”

            “Does he,” Wing said, mildly, taking another drink.

            “Yeah.”

            “And do you want to interface with him?”

            “Uh…” This wasn’t really what Drift had expected.

            Wing’s optics sparkled as he polished off his cube. “He’s nice-looking,” he pointed out. “And as a grounder himself, I’d imagine he knows some good tricks.”

            “Wing!”

            “And it would be a good team-building activity,” Wing went on, apparently oblivious to Drift’s growing embarrassment. His EM field fizzed with teasing. “That’s one way to get them used to you, I guess.”

            “Come on, Wing, stop it,” Drift groaned. He tossed his cube and sat down hard on the berth. “I’m serious. I don’t know what to tell him. We haven’t been around other Cybertronians in a long time and I don’t know how you feel about it. But whatever. It was stupid and I shouldn’t have said anything.”

            He didn’t look at Wing. Footsteps moved over to the dispenser to drop off the cube, then over to the berth, and Wing sat near him.

            “I don’t mind, you know,” Wing said abruptly.

            Drift groaned. “Seriously, Wing, you can stop teasing any time.”

            “I’m not teasing. I mean it,” Wing said. Drift shot him a look. “What? There’s no need to get possessive. A knight believes in sharing pleasure.”

            Drift grumbled. “That’s not how it’s… nn.”

            “What?” Wing grinned. “Not how it’s done with the Decepticons?”

            “Okay, no, if we were with the Decepticons, he’d have to fight you for me.” Drift shot a grin back. “And isn’t that your default response to a situation?” He tweaked his voice into Wing’s harmonics. “We’re going to do this every day. If you win, you can frag Drift. If not, you’re here forever.”

            Wing laughed. “Never living that down, am I?”

            “What do you think?”

            Drift was happy to let the subject slide away, but after a moment’s silence, Wing leaned over, tilting his head to get into Drift’s line of sight.

            “Well?”

            Drift sighed in exasperation. “Wing!”

            “I really don’t mind,” Wing said. “I mean… I could challenge him, if it would make you feel better? I just don’t see the point. I know I’d win.”

            “Oho?!” Drift laughed. “Wow, Wing.”

            “A knight is honest.”

           “So you’re telling me you wouldn’t be even a _little_ bit jealous?” Drift asked. “I could go frag Blurr and you’d, what? Sit here and… not mind? Not a bit?”

            Wing glanced away. Drift reached out for his EM field, but it was tucked close to Wing’s plating.

            “If you want him, Drift. We’re not… we’re not conjunx.” Drift gave an involuntary twitch. “We’ve never even decided to be exclusive. It’s not my right to stop you.”

            “So you wouldn’t care,” Drift said. Something knotted up inside him. Why was he… _disappointed?_ Had he really thought that if he was so ‘special,’ if he was some ‘miracle,’ then he might be worth getting jealous over?

            Wing’s head jerked up, his optics wide and hurt. “Of course I’d—! I just…” His EM field flexed, nervous. “I just want you to be happy, Drift. I mean… wouldn’t you… wouldn’t you get bored?”

            “Bored?”

            Wing looked down. “With me.”

            Drift reached out and took his chin, turning his face up. “Why? Are you bored with me?”

            “Never,” Wing whispered, his lips twitching up into a smile. “How could I be?”

            “Then how could I get bored with you?” Drift leaned forward. “Idiot.”

            He pressed his lips to Wing’s. Wing made a little noise of gratitude, pushing back, his hands coming up to Drift’s helm as his glossa lapped against Drift’s mouth. Drift opened up for it even as he pushed Wing down until he was sprawled on the berth, vents heaving.

            Drift’s systems were still running hot with residual energy from the spar. But he didn’t want to just go for a quick frag and a satisfying overload. No, this was a perfect time to prove that he’d never get bored of Wing. Not when Wing had so many interesting shapes on his shoulders and torso, gaps between his plating just big enough for Drift to slip a couple of fingers inside. And he could never get bored of Wing’s mouth, Wing’s kisses, the glossa that slid into his mouth as though it belonged there. Never bored of the little sounds Wing made, the gasps as Drift’s mouth moved to his jaw. Or of his fingers, moving over Drift’s back, finding sensitive spots to play with.

            Funny how everything seemed so clear, now, with Wing trapped under him, the fingers of his left hand tangled up in Drift’s right, his optics blazing as Drift’s kisses migrated across his shoulder. Funny how Drift was hyperaware of everything: the puffs of Wing’s vents against his heated armor, the involuntary twitches of Wing’s fingers tightening in his. He swore he could even feel the energon pumping through Wing’s lines. He pressed his mouth to Wing’s wrist, breathing in his palpable _need_ , the bright-flowing life in the energon lines under his lips. His glossa rubbed against them and Wing gave another little moaning sound, his hips fluttering helplessly under Drift’s weight. Drift ached with a need he hadn’t indulged in… centuries, really, never with Wing, but he _wanted_ it with Wing, wanted them tied together by this.

            It sparked bright and clear in his head. He didn’t want Blurr. He didn’t want anyone else. He just wanted Wing.

            He opened his mouth, running his glossa between and over the energon lines again. The very tip of one of his sharp Decepticon fangs nicked one of the lines and Wing gasped. Drift onlined the optics he hadn’t even realized were off, and glanced over at Wing.

            “This okay?” he whispered.

            Wing stared with wide optics, and his body rattled in a shudder under Drift’s. He nodded, his lips moving around half a word he couldn’t seem to say. Drift held his gaze as he pressed down just hard enough, one quick nip—one bright starburst of pain that made Wing gasp—and then he sealed his mouth over Wing’s wrist, running his glossa over the lines again until he found the nicked spot, where energon beaded up.

            The taste of it brought another time slamming back. When he and Gasket had done this—it hadn’t been sexual, but it was the most intimate thing either of them could imagine short of merging Sparks. To share _everything_ , down to the energon in their lines, to literally feed off each other. What he’d had with Gasket—that sort of dependence wasn’t weakness, but _strength_.

            Painful memories, but potent. Drift moaned and felt every twitch in Wing’s hand; every time Wing clenched his fingers the energon flowed just a little thicker, and Drift’s whole body vibrated as he sucked. Wing panted, shifting under him, his wrist trembling under Drift’s mouth. Drift left the nicked energon line with one last lick to catch spilled droplets—the cut was small enough that Wing’s self-repair could close it before he lost a significant amount of energon—and moved to Wing’s throat, desperate for more of that intimacy.

            Wing moaned as Drift’s fangs nicked a line in his neck. He tilted his head back, exposing more of his throat, and his hips jumped involuntarily—arousal was one possible reaction to this, Drift had found a long time ago. Wing’s hands shivered as they landed on the back of Drift’s head, stroking up the lines of his finials. Drift whined, nuzzling into his black throat cabling, sucking a little harder than he’d meant to. Wing arched, his fingers scraping down the sensitive metal. Drift came up gasping, breaking the spell, and Wing’s hand covered the wound on his neck, fingers testing and probing. His optics were glazed, but intense, on Drift. Drift felt the need to say something.

            “Back…” He ground to a halt almost before he’d begun, but Wing’s optics flickered with understanding and he nodded, silently, for Drift to go on. “Where I came from,” Drift stumbled rather than say “on the streets,” “this was… it was important.”

            There was so much more to say than that, but he couldn’t find the words and Wing didn’t seem to need them. He reached up to run his thumb over Drift’s lower lip, wiping away his own energon.

            “May I?” he asked shyly.

            In answer, Drift rolled them over so Wing came out on top. Wing kissed him on the mouth, then along his jaw, then down his neck.

            “Teach me,” he whispered, his glossa flicking swiftly over a cable. “Here?”

            Drift reached up to stroke the line. Then his thumb brushed Wing’s lips and Wing parted them slightly, allowing him further in. Drift’s thumb pressed up against one of Wing’s small fangs, testing.

            “You’ll do fine,” he breathed. Wing sucked on his finger for a moment, optics slightly worried. Then he dipped his head, lips working over throat cabling. His plating shuddered. The point of his little fang caught on the energon line. Drift moaned at the sting, arching up eagerly. Wing’s glossa flicked against the cut and the jet shivered again, his hands twitching as they curled into Drift’s plating. A low whine built in someone’s vocalizer; a moment later Drift realized it was Wing’s, not his, and Wing shuddered violently, pulling away. His fans roared.

            “I can’t,” he gasped, unable to meet Drift’s eyes. “I—I can’t.”

            Drift pulled him gently down, rubbing their foreheads together. “It’s not for everyone,” he murmured, brushing one kiss, then two, over Wing’s lips. “It’s okay, Wing. You tried. It’s okay.” Wing returned the kisses, but still looked shaken. “Sit up.”

            Wing shot him a confused look as he straightened up, straddling Drift’s midsection. Drift put his hands on Wing’s hips and coaxed him forward.

            “Come on, up here.” Wing scooched a little bit forward. “Come on, come on!”

            Wing gave a confused laugh, shifting forward more. “Drift…”

            “ _All_ the way up,” Drift urged, settling his hands onto Wing’s aft to pull him in a move that made Wing chuckle, clambering awkwardly over Drift’s shoulders.

            “I, uh…”

            “And down,” Drift said, when he finally had Wing where he wanted him. Wing’s thighs trembled on either side of his head as he hesitated.

            “Drift… really…?”

            “Really,” Drift said, tugging on his hips. “Sit.”

            “Oh,” Wing breathed, as he relaxed his thighs and settled onto Drift’s face. It should have been uncomfortable, but Drift didn’t care, not when he could swirl his glossa over Wing’s panel.

            “Open up,” he said, and the vibrations of his voice made Wing gasp, and when his panel clicked open his valve was already wet and dripping. Drift tugged Wing’s hips down harder and lapped at his valve.

            “Oh,” Wing said again, staring down at Drift with bright, astonished optics. Drift flicked his glossa against Wing’s external node and Wing gasped, grinding his hips down for a second.

            “What?” Drift said, mischievously, just to make Wing squirm as his mouth moved. “Never done this before?”

            He didn’t really care what the answer was, so he made Wing unable to speak: he rubbed his nasal ridge firmly against his nub and delved his glossa deep into the slippery mesh. Wing moaned, rocking. At first he made an effort to keep his weight off Drift’s face, but Drift anchored him with his hands, stopping him from getting too far, and he swirled his glossa around sensor clusters until Wing was grinding down against him. _That_ was more like it. Drift grinned against his valve, now rubbing properly against Drift’s mouth, smearing lubricant all over his chin. If it wasn’t messy, he wasn’t doing his job.

            His fingers scraped up and down Wing’s skirting panels as he shut off his optics and just savored the feast. Wing’s moans made a lovely counterpoint to the wet, slick noises of his valve sliding over Drift’s face, Drift’s little slurps as his glossa dipped repeatedly inside, then darted teasingly out to play with Wing’s nub instead.

            “Wait…” Wing gasped, which Drift ignored, but Wing squirmed, tugging his valve just out of reach. “Drift, wait… wait…”

            “Don’t want to,” Drift complained, sticking out his glossa to try to get Wing back. Wing moved above him, turning. A skirting panel smacked against Drift’s finials. “Ow! Wing…?!”

            But then Wing’s valve was back as Wing settled back down, facing the other direction. Admittedly it was easier to get at his external node from this angle, but what—?!

            Drift arched up suddenly as Wing leaned forward, stretching out down his body, and his tongue worked over the seams of Drift’s panel. Drift opened up instantly, groaning, and buried his tongue gratefully back in Wing’s valve. He was about to open up his spike cover, but Wing’s hand covered it, and Wing’s glossa instead circled around and around his valve cover. Drift moaned into him, clicking it open with barely a moment’s hesitation.

            Wing’s hips ground down onto him in appreciation; Drift lapped at his external node, spreading his legs wider, as Wing’s glossa lapped at his exposed valve, a soft, wet pressure Drift had experienced only once before. He pushed up, seeking more of this pleasure. Wing was eager to give it to him. His glossa was warm and flexible, seeking out sensory nodes and exploiting them. Drift had to rally all his concentration to keep up his own ministrations.

            They rocked in time, glossae exploring valves, charge building up around them. There was no hurry—Drift would happily lie here, enjoying the strange, unfamiliar, but entirely welcome sensation of Wing’s tongue inside him, while he savored the taste of Wing’s valve in return, forever. Overload was a goal, but this wasn’t a race. It was all about the moment: the moment where Drift sealed his mouth over Wing’s whole valve and sucked, and a fresh gush of lubricant soaked his glossa; the moment where Wing’s fingers spread Drift’s valve lining enough to let him get at a deeper node he hadn’t touched yet, one that made fire blaze through Drift’s systems; the moment where Drift’s teeth closed gently over Wing’s nub, biting down just enough to make Wing cry out, beautiful vibrations in Drift’s valve; the moment where Wing murmured words Drift couldn’t hear but could only feel, buzzing against his valve, his nub, driving him to distraction.

            It was impossible to say who overloaded first. Time seemed to be compressed, so that Drift couldn’t tell the difference between one moment and the next, and he just knew that at some point Wing writhed atop him, singing a chiming cry into Drift’s valve, lubricants spilling out onto Drift’s mouth, and at some point Drift felt like he was set on fire, charge racing through every part of him, as he bucked his hips up against Wing’s generous glossa.

            Their fans blew hot air across their plating as they recovered, Wing’s cheek resting on Drift’s thigh, Drift’s glossa absently rubbing the jet’s nub. Then Wing gave a little groan, raising his hips off of Drift’s head and crawling back around. It didn’t even seem as awkward this time, with his languorous post-overload grace. Finally he flopped back down, half on top of Drift but facing the right way now. Drift looked at him and couldn’t help a wicked grin—Wing’s face was positively _filthy_ with fresh valve lubricant smeared all around his mouth. Wing licked his lips and laughed, reaching out to wipe his thumb over Drift’s chin.

            “Like you’re so clean,” he murmured, his voice half an octave lower than usual. “I don’t know about you, but…” His smile widened. “I think we should hit the washracks.”

            He laughed again. Drift chuckled.

            “You only get this giggly after a _really_ good overload.”

            “Yeah?” Wing nuzzled close, and the kinky jet didn’t even hesitate for a second before kissing him, a wet mess of fluids on each of their glossae. Drift draped an arm over his partner and Wing hooked a leg over his, still giggling into his mouth.

            “Still think I could ever get bored of you?” Drift murmured into the kiss.

            “To be honest?” Wing said. He sucked Drift’s glossa into his mouth for a second, his own swirling playfully around it, before letting it escape. “I wouldn’t be okay with it.”

            “What?” Drift was a little distracted.

            “You with someone else,” Wing admitted.

            “Blurr?”

            “ _Anyone_ ,” Wing said. He was still smiling, but there was a fierce light to it now. “Because I don’t want to miss an instant of your pleasure. Thinking about you making those noises… looking like this… with someone else… thinking of your hands on someone else, _anyone_ else… it tears me apart.” He kissed Drift again, between each phrase, like he couldn’t bear to be separated, like he needed Drift’s touch to live. “I know it’s selfish, and not how a knight should feel.”

            “No, I like it,” Drift assured him, as he returned the kisses. “Maybe it’s the Decepticon in me, but I like it. I don’t want anyone else. I just want you. I want you to be _mine_. And…”

            _I want to be yours._

            “Yours,” Wing sighed, like it was his favorite word. “I am, Drift.”

            He wrapped Drift in his arms, pulling him into a kiss that felt different from the rest. Drift returned it, happy to rest in Wing’s arms, the first place in a long time that felt like home.

            “Now,” Wing said, starting to laugh again, “about those washracks?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comments make my day!


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